THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK       BOSTON  •    CHICAGO   •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON    •  BOMBAY   •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


#11)05 
SHAKESPEARE 


AND  THE 


FOUNDERS   OF    LIBERTY   IN 
AMERICA 


BY 
CHARLES  MILLS  GAYLEY,  LITT.D.,  LL.D. 

PROFESSOR    OF    THE    ENGLISH    LANGUAGE    AND    LITERATURE    IN   THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


fork 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1917 

All  rights  reserved 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  LIBERTY  IN  AMERICA        .      i 
II.  SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  LIBERALS  OF  THE  VIR- 
GINIA COMPANY    ......      8 

III.  THE  TEMPEST  AND  AN  UNPUBLISHED  LETTER 

FROM  VIRGINIA    ......     40 

IV.  THE  LEADER  OF  THE  LIBERAL  MOVEMENT — SIR 

EDWIN  SANDYS 81 

V.  RICHARD  HOOKER  AND  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  AMER- 
ICAN LIBERTY 95 

VI.  SHAKESPEARE'S  VIEWS  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL  IN 

RELATION  TO  THE  STATE      .         .         .         .  115 
VII.   SHAKESPEARE  AND  HOOKER     .         .         .         .162 
VEIL  THE  HERITAGE  IN  COMMON:  ENGLAND,  AMERICA, 

FRANCE 191 

LX.  THE  MEANING  FOR  Us  TODAY  ....  216 

APPENDIX 225 

INDEX  .  261 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  THE  FOUNDERS 
OF  LIBERTY  IN  AMERICA 


Shakespeare  and  the   Founders   of 
Liberty  in   America 

CHAPTER  I 

THE   FOUNDATIONS    OF    LIBERTY   IN   AMERICA 

THE  incomparable  seamen  and  adventurers  who 
in  Elizabeth's  reign  swept  Spain  from  the  seas,  and 
bridled  the  West  Indies  and  the  Northern  continents 
for  English  enterprise,  colonization,  law  and  speech, — 
Drake  and  Frobisher,  Davis,  Hawkins,  Gilbert  and 
Raleigh — were  compatriots  of  our  forefathers  and 
pioneers  of  our  American  history.  Those  were  the 
years  of  Shakespeare's  youth:  when  he  whipped  his 
top  in  the  school-yard  behind  the  Guild  Hall  of  Strat- 
ford; when  he  walked  each  night  the  hawthorn  lane 
to  Shottery;  when  he  bade  farewell  to  Henley  Street; 
when  he  played  his  first  parts  with  Leicester's  com- 
pany in  London.  The  adventurers  and  planters  of 
Virginia,  in  later  years  when  Shakespeare  was  writing 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  Coriolanus,  and  The  Tempest, 
were  of  his  blood  and  temper,  the  blood  and  temper 
of  the  forefathers  of  many  of  us  today.  Their  ven- 
tures and  failures,  their  faults  and  virtues,  are  our 
history,  Anglo-Saxon  and  American,  as  well  as  theirs. 


2  The  Foundations  of 

It  was  a  group  of  patriots  clustered  about  Shake- 
speare's patron,  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  and  Sir 
Edwin  Sandys,  Southampton's  ally — a  group  of  pa- 
triots, some  of  them  friends  of  Shakespeare,  some  of 
them  acquaintances, — that  laid  the  foundations  of 
constitutional  government  in  the  New  World. 

They  were  the  leaders  of  the  Liberal,  or  Inde- 
pendent party  in  the  Virginia  Company  of  London, 
several  of  them  leaders  of  that  party  in  Parliament, 
too.  Looking  at  first  for  redress  from  James  I  of 
abuses  which  toward  the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign 
had  run  to  a  somewhat  perilous  excess — favoritism, 
monopoly,  subsidy,  interference  with  control  of  taxa- 
tion, with  freedom  of  election,  person  and  speech, 
and  with  other  political  inheritance  of  the  Com- 
mons— they  soon  found  that  under  the  new  regime 
they  had  leaped  from  the  frying  pan  into  the  fire. 
In  the  charter  of  1606,  granted  for  the  establishment 
of  plantations  in  Virginia,  the  future  inhabitants  and 
their  posterity  were  to  have  "all  liberties,  franchises, 
and  immunities"  of  British  subjects;  but  the  King 
had  "reserved  to  himself  the  right  to  furnish  the  form 
of  government  for  the  companies  in  England  and 
plantations  in  America,  and  also  to  appoint  the  offi- 
cials to  execute  the  same.  .  .  .  The  plantations  and 
companies  were  directly  under  the  political  control 
of  the  Crown.  .  .  .  The  members  of  the  council  in 
America  had  the  right  of  suffrage  among  themselves; 
but  they  were  representatives  of  an  absolute  king. 
The  planters  had  no  control  over  them,  and  little 


Liberty  in  America  3 

or  no  part  in  the  government,  which  was  imperial." 
The  people  had  no  political  power.  The  industrial 
system  was  to  be  balefully  communistic,  that  of  "a 
vast  stock  farm,  or  collection  of  farms,  worked  by 
servants  who  were  to  receive,  in  return  for  their 
labor,  all  their  necessaries  and  a  share  in  the  proceeds 
of  the  undertaking."  x 

From  1608  on,  the  Patriots,  as  they  were  called,  of 
the  company  in  London  set  their  faces  toward 
reform — none  more  zealously  than  the  Earl  of 
Southampton  and  Sir  Edwin  Sandys.  The  former 
had  long  been  interested  in  schemes  for  colonization. 
In  1602  he  had  aided  in  sending  Captain  Gosnold 
for  the  exploration  of  the  New  England  coast;  in 
1605  he  had  furnished  with  others  the  moneys  for 
the  voyage  of  Captain  Weymouth.  Of  the  Council 
for  Virginia  Southampton  became  a  member  in  1609. 
Sandys  had  been  a  member  since  1607.  Opposed  to 
the  growing  imperialism  of  the  King,  his  pretensions 
to  divine  right,  his  religious  and  political  intolerance, 
and  the  intrigues  of  his  tools — the  Spanish  or  Court 
party — in  the  company,  these  and  other  statesmen 
moved  for  charters  for  Virginia  by  which  the  more 
dangerous  prerogatives  of  James  I  should  pass  to 
the  body  politic,  and  by  which  ultimately  the  colo- 
nists should  compass  an  independent  development. 

1  Alexander  Brown,  English  Politics  in  Early  Virginia  History, 
6-7;  Genesis  of  the  United  States,  1, 52-63,  Letters  Patent  of  Apr. 
1606;  65-75,  Articles,  Instructions  and  Orders  of  Nov.  1606; 
also  J.  A.  Doyle,  English  Colonies  in  America,  vol.  I,  ch.  vi. 


4  The  Foundations  of 

Burdened  neither  by  autocracy  nor  communism,  they 
were  to  be  secure  in  the  individual  enjoyment  of 
prosperity  and  of  civil  and  religious  liberty.  At 
home  the  Patriots  had  suffered  from  despotism  both 
of  church  and  state;  "in  Virginia  they  purposed  to 
erect,"  as  Sir  Edwin  Sandys  announced,  "a  free, 
popular  state,  in  which  the  inhabitants  should  have 
no  government  putt  upon  them  but  by  their  own 
consente."  *  These  Patriots  were  men  with  whom 
Shakespeare  spake;  and  that  he  was  in  sympathy 
with  the  ideals  of  the  party  and  in  confidential  rela- 
tion with  some  of  its  leaders  we  shall  presently  see. 
That  we  may  have  before  us  the  questions  at  issue 
let  us  run  rapidly  over  the  course  of  the  conflict  dur- 
ing his  lifetime  and  that  of  his  immediate  contem- 
poraries. 

By  a  charter  obtained  in  1609,  through  the  efforts 
of  the  Patriots,  the  London  Company  for  Virginia 
acquired  many  of  the  powers  heretofore  vested  in  the 
crown.  The  political  control  of  the  colony  passed  in 
a  significant  degree  to  the  body  politic  of  planters 
and  adventurers.  Though  the  planters  gained  no 
significant  liberties,  the  corporation  gained  many; 
and  the  company  as  a  whole  became  democratic 
in  organization.2  By  a  third  charter,  in  1612,  the 
Patriots  acquired  for  the  company  still  further 

1  Brown,  Eng.  Pol.  in  Va.  Hist.,  8,  II,  47. 

2  Brown,  Genesis,  I,  206-237,  The  Second  Charter;  259-277, 
New  Britain  (showing  the  ideals  of  the  Council).    See  also  H.  L. 
Osgood,  The  American  Colonies  in  the  Seventeenth  Century, 
56-59. 


Liberty  in  America  5 

powers  of  self-direction  and  of  dealing  with  the 
laziness,  insubordination,  and  crime  due  in  larger 
part  to  the  still  existing  joint-stock  provisions  stipu- 
lated by  the  King's  first  charter.  Soon  steps  were 
taken  for  the  abandonment  of  the  system  of  com- 
munal proprietorship:  individual  allotments  were 
assigned  to  some  of  the  colonists;  and  thus  were  laid 
the  foundations  of  personal  effort  and  industrial 
prosperity.  This  under  the  governorship  of  the  un- 
justly execrated  Sir  Thomas  Dale.  "With  great 
and  constant  severity,"  says  the  chief  founder  of  our 
colonial  liberties,  Sir  Edwin  Sandys,  "with  great  and 
constant  severity  he  reclaimed  almost  miraculously 
these  idle  and  disordered  people,  and  reduced  them 
to  labor  and  an  honest  fashion  of  life."  l 

In  the  year  of  Shakespeare's  death,  1616,  the  joint- 
stock  period  came  to  an  end;  and  the  victory  of  the 
Patriots  seemed  to  be  in  sight.  But  the  King,  as- 
sisted by  the  Court  party,  had  meanwhile  been  laying 
plans  to  negative  the  new  property  rights  of  the  colo- 
nists and  utterly  to  defeat  the  aspirations  of  the  man- 
agers. Working  in  collusion  with  certain  minions 
of  the  King,  Dale's  successor,  Argall,  proceeded  to 
obtain  a  patent  which  should  turn  the  plantation 
into  "a  private  or  proprietary  affair  exempt  from  all 
authority  to  the  company  and  the  colony."  The 
Patriot  party  which,  as  Lodge  puts  it,  was  "begin- 

1  For  the  Third  Charter  see  Brown,  Genesis,  II,  540-553 ; 
for  Dale,  ibid.,  II,  869-874,  and  H.  C.  Lodge,  Hist.  Eng.  Colonies 
in  America,  8. 


6  The  Foundations  of 

ning  to  make  the  London  Company  for  Virginia  a 
school  for  education  in  free  government  found  that 
the  governorship  of  their  colony  had  been  stolen, 
and  the  enterprise  almost  ruined  by  the  court  minor- 
ity. The  grievances  of  the  Virginians  found,  therefore, 
a  ready  hearing  from  men  upon  whom  the  hand  of 
majesty  had  already  begun  to  press."  l  A  revolution 
in  the  company  swept  not  only  Argall  but  the  King's 
party  out  of  power.  Sir  Edwin  Sandys,  the  Earl 
of  Southampton,  and  others  of  the  Patriot  party 
in  Parliament  and  in  the  company,  deriving  their 
authority  from  the  liberal  provisions  of  the  charters 
which  they  had  already  secured  from  the  King, 
framed  for  the  suffering  colonists  a  "Great  Charter 
or  Commissions  of  Priviledges,  Orders,  and  Lawes." 
This  was  ratified  by  the  Virginia  court  in  London  in 
1618,  and  under  its  provisions  was  established,  in 
the  year  following,  the  first  representative  govern- 
ment in  America.  The  governor's  power  was  limited 
by  a  general  assembly  consisting  of  a  council  and  of 
burgesses  freely  elected  from  each  local  group  of 
colonists;  and  this  assembly  had  "power  to  make  and 
maintaine  whatsoever  lawes  and  orders  should  by 
them  be  thought  good  and  profitable."  By  this 
charter — the  outcome  of  the  efforts  of  the  Liberals 
at  home — the  foundation  was  laid  for  constitutional 
government  in  the  New  World.  Government  by 
consent  of  the  governed,  freedom  of  speech,  equality 

1  Lodge,  Eng.  Col.  in  Am.,  8-12;  Records  of  the  Virginia  Co., 
I,6S. 


Liberty  in  America  7 

before  the  law,  trial  by  jury  were  assured.  And  by 
another  constitution  some  three  years  later:  all  im- 
munities and  franchises  of  English  freemen  were 
confirmed  anew;  and  the  usages  of  English  law  and 
English  courts,  and  the  regularity  of  legislative  as- 
semblage, prescribed.  Provision  was  made  for  con- 
sent of  the  company  at  home  to  legislative  enactment; 
but  it  was  provided  that  no  orders  from  London 
should  be  binding  on  the  colony  unless  ratified  by 
her  Assembly.  Upon  the  charters  thus  culminating 
all  future  rights  and  liberties  of  the  colonies — north 
and  south,  of  the  revolutionary  America  of  1775  and 
of  the  Republic  of  today,  are  built.1 

In  1619  Sandys  and  Southampton  gained  complete 
control  of  the  Virginia  Company;  but  from  that  time 
on  the  Patriots  and  the  King  were  more  than  ever 
locked  in  combat.  In  1624  the  cause  was  temporarily 
lost.  Virginia  became  a  royal  province  and  the 
charters  were  annulled.  "But  the  principles  that 
inspired"  the  founders  of  our  liberty  "had  been 
planted  in  America.  The  seed  had  germinated,  and 
the  tender  plant  was  growing  in  our  free  air."  2 

1  E.  Eggleston,  The  Beginnings  of  a  Nation,  51-56;  Lodge, 
Eng.  Col.  Am.,  8-12;  Brown,  Eng.  Pol.  in  Va.,  29. 

2  Brown,  Eng.  Pol.  in  Va.,  53. 


Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 


CHAPTER  II 

SHAKESPEARE    AND    THE    LIBERALS    OF    THE    VIRGINIA 
COMPANY 


OF  the  liberal  faction  in  the  Virginia  Company, 
several,  as  I  have  said,  were  Shakespeare's  friends  or 
acquaintances;  several  were  friends  of  his  friends. 
Prominent  among  them  was  a  group  consisting  of  the 
Earl  of  Southampton,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and 
others  who  had  been  associates  of  the  high-spirited 
and  unfortunate  Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex. 
If  Shakespeare  did  not  know  Essex,  he  at  any  rate 
admired  him  and  gave  him  his  homage.  When,  be- 
tween 1594  and  1596,  the  dramatist  wrote  his  anti- 
Semitic  play,  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  it  is  not  un- 
likely that  he  had  in  mind  affairs  in  which  Essex 
had  vital  and  well-known  interest.  For  the  Christian 
Antonio  appears  to  reflect  the  distinguished  Antonio 
Perez,  a  friend  of  the  Earl,  and  Shylock  to  be  a 
caricature  of  a  former  protege  of  Essex — the  Jewish 
physician,  Roderigo  Lopez,  who  had  been  recently 
tried  and  hanged  for  an  alleged  attempt  to  poison 
not  only  Perez  but  the  Queen  herself.1  This  is  the 

1  See  Lee's  Life  of  Shakespeare,  p.  72,  for  statement  and  fur- 
ther references. 


Virginia  Company  9 

Essex,  impatient  of  the  caresses  and  caprices  of 
majesty,  darling  of  the  populace,  whom,  as  "general 
of  our  gracious  Empress"  in  command  against  the 
Irish  rebels,  Shakespeare  had,  in  1599,  celebrated 
in  the  prologue  to  the  last  act  of  Henry  V.  This  is 
the  Essex,  who,  failing  in  his  Irish  campaign  and  in- 
curring the  displeasure  of  Elizabeth,  opened  nego- 
tiations with  the  Puritans  and  the  King  of  Scots, 
and  finally  entered  into  a  plot  for  the  removal  of  the 
Queen's  councillors.  In  order  to  foment  a  popular 
uprising  on  behalf  of  the  Earl  his  fellow-conspirators 
persuaded  Shakespeare's  company  of  players  to 
present  Richard  II,  a  drama  which  with  its  scenes 
of  deposition  and  murder  had  been  always  regarded 
by  the  Queen  with  suspicion,  aversion.  "I  am 
Richard  II,"  cried  she  afterwards,  "know  ye  not 
that?"  The  man  who  "bespoke  the  play,"  Sir  Charles 
Percy,  son  of  the  Earl  of  Northumberland,  was 
familiar  with  Shakespeare's  genius,  as  we  see  from 
his  allusions  to  Silence  and  Justice  Shallow  in  a  letter 
written  about  a  year  before.  The  poet's  tragedy 
was  performed  February  7,  1601,  the  night  before 
Essex  and  his  friends,  among  them  the  Earl  of  South- 
ampton and  Charles  Percy,  made  their  ill-fated 
march  upon  the  palace.1 

Essex  died  for  his  treason,  and  others  with  him. 
Southampton,  who  had  already  forfeited  the  royal 

1  See  Shakesp.  Allusion-Book,  I,  81-3,  86-7,  98;  also 
State  Papers,  Domestic,  Vol.  275,  No.  146;  Vol.  278,  Nos.  78, 
and  85. 


io  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

favor  by  marrying  Essex's  cousin,  without  the 
Queen's  consent,  and  more  recently  by  accepting 
without  her  sanction  the  mastership  of  the  Horse 
in  Essex's  Irish  expedition,  was  sentenced  to  death, 
but  reprieved  and  committed  to  the  Tower  for  life. 
Sir  Gelly  Merrick  who  gave  the  4<D/  to  the  actors 
of  the  Globe  on  that  unlucky  sixth  of  February  was 
of  tT&se  who  were  beheaded;  but  the  players  them- 
selves escaped  punishment.  Shakespeare  kept  si- 
lence. Two  years  later  when  the  great  Queen  died, 
he  still  kept  a  significant  silence;  nay,  was  reproached 
that  he  did  not  "Drop  from  his  honied  muse  one 
sable  tear  To  mourn  her  death."  But  his  reticence 
was  natural.  Though  Elizabeth  had  "graced  his 
desert,  And  to  his  laies  opened  her  royal  eare," 
Essex  had  been  his  admiration  and  Southampton  was 
his  benefactor  and  friend.  To  Southampton  he  had 
dedicated  his  Venus  and  Adonis  in  1593;  the  next 
year,  his  Rape  of  Lucrece — and  with  what  sincerity 
of  devotion:  "The  love  I  dedicate  to  your  Lordship 
is  without  end.  .  .  .  The  warrant  I  have  of  your 
honourable  disposition,  not  the  worth  of  my  un- 
tutor'd  lines,  makes  it  assured  of  acceptance.  What 
I  have  done  is  yours;  what  I  have  to  do  is  yours; 
having  part  in  all  I  have,  devoted  yours.  Were  my 
worth  greater,  my  duty  would  show  greater;  mean- 
time, as  it  is,  it  is  bound  to  your  lordship;  to  whom 
I  wish  long  life,  still  strengthened  with  all  happi- 
ness. Your  Lordship's  in  all  duty,  William  Shake- 
speare." Sentiments  of  love  and  duty,  and  profes- 


Virginia  Company  n 

sion  of  worth  inadequate  to  express  them,  repeated 
distinctly  in  that  sonnet  which  opens, 

Lord  of  my  love,  to  whom  in  vassalage 

Thy  merit  hath  my  duty  strongly  knit, 

To  thee  I  send  this  written  ambassage, 

To  witness  duty,  not  to  show  my  wit: 

Duty  so  great,  which  wit  so  poor  as  mine 

May  make  seem  bare,  in  wanting  words  to  show  it, 

But  that  I  hope  some  good  conceit  of  thine 

In  thy  soul's  thought,  all  naked,  will  bestow  it. 

Of  the  poet's  sonnets  of  undying  friendship  there  is 
little  doubt  that  several  were  addressed  to  the  same 
gracious  personage,  and  that,  conventional  as  their 
temper  and  fashion  may  be,  they  express  a  sincere 
affection.  To  no  other  literary  patron  than  South- 
ampton do  we  know  that  Shakespeare  indited  a 
dedicatory  epistle;  and  we  know  of  no  other  who  so 
munificently  assisted  a  poet  as  Southampton  is 
reputed  to  have  done  by  Shakespeare.  Even  though 
the  gift  of  which  tradition  informs  us — "a  thousand 
pounds  to  enable  him  to  go  through  with  a  purchase" 
— be  exaggerated,  the  tradition  had  currency  within 
a  hundred  years  of  the  death  of  both,  and  illustrates 
the  popular  recognition  of  their  friendship. 

It  was  only  after  James  I  had  mounted  the  throne 
and  liberated  Shakespeare's  friend  "supposed  as 
forfeit  to  a  confined  doom"  that  the  poet,  hailing 
the  era  of  happy  augury,  broke  silence  concerning 
the  "eclipse  of  that  mortal  moon"  Elizabeth: 


12  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

Not  mine  own  fears,  nor  the  prophetic  soul 

Of  the  wide  world,  dreaming  on  things  to  come, 

Can  yet  the  lease  of  my  true  love  control, 

Supposed  as  forfeit  to  a  confined  doom. 

The  mortal  moon  hath  her  eclipse  endured, 

And  the  sad  augurs  mock  their  own  presage; 

Incertainties  now  crown  themselves  assured, 

And  peace  proclaims  olives  of  endless  age. 

Now  with  the  drops  of  this  most  balmy  time 

My  love  looks  fresh  .  .  . 

And  thou  in  this  shalt  find  thy  monument 

When  tyrants'  crests  and  tombs  of  brass  are  spent. 

Ill-advised  as  Essex's  uprising  had  been  it  was  a 
movement  directed  against  the  increasing  arbitrari- 
ness of  the  aged  Queen,  and  with  the  purpose  of  es- 
tablishing a  more  liberal  plan  of  government  and 
ensuring  its  continuance  by  settlement  of  the  suc- 
cession upon  the  King  of  Scots.  By  the  public  the 
memory  of  Essex  was  cherished:  both  he  and  his 
associates  were  acclaimed  as  patriots.  None  more 
so  than  Southampton, — and  fittingly;  within  five 
years,  as  member  of  the  Council  for  Virginia,  he 
was  heading  the  reformers  of  that  company,  a  patriot 
still  but  with  face  now  set  against  the  tyrannous 
policy  of  the  Stuart  prince  upon  whose  accession  too 
many  hopes  had  been  built. 

To  this  group  belonged  also  William  Herbert, 
third  Earl  of  Pembroke,  a  nephew  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  whose  widow  Essex  had  married.  He  had 
been  knighted  by  that  earl  at  Cadiz  in  1596,  and  had 


Virginia  Company  13 

been  on  friendly  terms  with  him;  but  he  took  no 
active  part  in  the  uprising  of  1601.  Pembroke  was  a 
heavy  investor  in  the  Virginia  enterprise,  and  be- 
came a  member  of  the  Council  in  1609.  For  fifteen 
years  he  faithfully  served  the  interests  of  the  colony. 
From  1620  on  he  was  a  member  of  the  Council  for 
New  England  as  well,  as  was  Southampton.1  That 
he  was  acquainted  with  Shakespeare,  not  merely  in 
his  function  as  dramatist  and  actor  at  Court  but 
personally,  no  one  can  question  who  studies  the 
evidence  without  prejudice.  It  was  to  Pembroke  and 
Pembroke's  brother,  Philip,  the  Earl  of  Montgomery 
that  two  of  Shakespeare's  most  intimate  friends,  the 
editors  of  the  first  folio  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  dedi- 
cated that  volume,  saying  that  they  did  so  because 
"your  lordships  have  been  pleased  to  think  these 
trifles  something  heretofore,  and  have  prosequuted 

1  For  the  records  of  the  Virginia  Company  of  London,  the 
lists  of  adventurers,  and  the  membership  of  the  Councils  to 
1619,  the  most  convenient  authority  is  Alexander  Brown's  com- 
prehensive and  admirably  documented  Genesis  of  the  United 
States,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1890.  Brief  but  invaluable  biographies 
of  persons  connected  with  the  founding  of  Virginia  are  appended 
(II,  807-1068).  Reference  may  also  be  made  to  the  Abstract 
of  Proceedings  of  the  Virginia  Company  of  London  (Hist.  Soc. 
Va.),  the  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  Domestic  and  Colonial,  the 
Massachusetts  Hist.  Soc.  Publications,  E.  D.  Neill's  Extracts 
from  Manuscript  Records  of  the  Va.  Company,  and  his  Hist. 
Va.  Co.  of  London,  Doyle's  English  Colonies  in  America,  and 
his  Records  of  the  Va.  Company,  Stith's  History  of  Virginia, 
the  entries  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  Wood's 
Athenae,  Aubrey's  Brief  Lives,  and  other  sources  as  mentioned 
in  the  text. 


14  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

both  them  and  their  Authour  living,  with  so  much 
favour;"  and  because  they  "hope  that  .  .  .  you 
will  use  the  like  indulgence  toward  them  you  have 
done  unto  their  parent."  These  words  were  written 
and  published  in  1623,  only  seven  years  after  Shake- 
speare's death.  The  writers,  Heminges  and  Condell, 
had  known  the  dramatist  for  twenty  years  and  more; 
they  had  acted  in  one  after  another  of  his  plays; 
they  had  been  his  business  partners  for  many  years. 
It  was  not  only  "these  remaines  of  your  Servant 
Shakespeare"  that  their  lordships  had  furthered 
with  their  "favour,"  but  the  "parent,"  while  he  was 
still  living.  The  writers  do  not  mean  that  as  Lord 
Chamberlain,  exercising  supreme  authority  in  the- 
atrical affairs,  Pembroke  had  shown  favor  to  Shake- 
speare. The  favor  was  unofficial.  For  Pembroke 
did  not  become  Chamberlain  till  1615,  four  years 
after  Shakespeare  had  practically  ceased  making  or 
acting  plays,  and  had  retired  to  Stratford, — in  fact 
when  he  had  but  four  months  more  to  live.  The 
period  of  this  acquaintance  and  friendly  relation 
was  during  the  earlier  years  of  James's  reign,  when 
Pembroke  was  a  man  about  Court;  or  earlier  still 
when,  as  Lord  Herbert,  he  used  to  live  at  Baynard's 
Castle  near  the  theatre  of  Blackfriars.  That  was 
between  1598  and  1601,  just  the  time  of  the  Essex 
and  Southampton  crisis  to  which  we  have  recently 
referred.  Pembroke  was  a  well-known  friend  of  other 
poets — of  Donne  and  George  Herbert  and  Vaughan; 
and  he  had  been  from  1602,  especially  from  1610, 


Virginia  Company  15 

on,  a  "learned  and  most  noble  patron  of  learning" — 
of  Jonson,  Chapman  and  William  Browne,  and  many 
more.  Now  he  was  Chamberlain  as  well.  It  was 
therefore  doubly  reasonable  that  Heminges  and 
Condell  should  turn  to  him  for  patronage  when  they 
were  issuing  the  folio  of  their  fellow-player's  works. 
The  patronage  they  solicited  was,  however,  not 
for  Shakespeare  but  for  themselves  as  editors;  and 
the  justification  they  alleged  was  not  that  Pem- 
broke had  ever  been  the  formal  literary  patron  of 
Shakespeare  as  of  Jonson  and  the  rest,  but  that 
Pembroke  and  his  brother  had  expressed  their 
"likings  of  the  severall  parts,  when  they  were  acted," 
and  had  used  "indulgence"  to  the  dramatist. 

"There  is  great  difference,"  say  the  editors,  "whether 
a  Booke  choose  his  Patrones  or  find  them :  This  hath 
done  both."  Shakespeare  had  done  the  finding. 
That  Heminges  and  Condell  should,  in  the  choosing, 
associate  with  the  Lord  Chamberlain  his  brother, 
a  distinguished  nobleman,  to  be  sure,  but  not  patron 
of  letters,  needs  no  explanation  but  that  given:  he 
also  had,  not  formally  but  personally,  "prosequuted" 
the  "Authour  living  with  much  favour."  The  per- 
sonal acquaintance  of  Pembroke  and  Shakespeare 
would  probably  never  have  been  questioned  had  it 
not  been  for  the  untenable  contention  advanced  by 
some  that  Pembroke,  Lord  William  Herbert,  was 
more  than  an  acquaintance — no  other  than  the  "W. 
H.,"  the  "onlie  begetter"  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets. 
To  make  a  clean  sweep  of  all  this,  the  over-zealous 


1 6  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

have  emptied  out  the  baby  with  the  bath.  For  our 
present  purpose  the  plain  statement  of  Heminges  and 
Condell  is  enough.  Like  Pembroke,  the  Earl  of 
Montgomery  was  in  1609  a  subscriber  to  the  Vir- 
ginia Company.  He  became  member  of  the  Council 
under  the  third  charter,  1612;  and  as  late  as  1643, 
having  cast  his  lot  with  Parliament  against  the  crown, 
he  is,  with  Pym  and  Cromwell,  one  of  the  commis- 
sioners appointed  for  the  liberal  government  of  the 
plantations  in  America. 

Three  other  adherents  of  the  Essex  group  in  the 
Council — Sir  Robert  Sidney,  Sir  Henry  Neville  and 
Lord  De  la  Warr — were  familiar  with  various  friends 
of  Shakespeare.  Sidney,  the  brother  of  the  match- 
less Sir  Philip,  was  Pembroke's  uncle;  and  with  the 
Earl  of  Essex  he  had  been  knit  by  ties  of  affection 
as  well  as  of  family.  He  was  created  councillor  for 
Virginia  in  the  same  year  as  Pembroke;  and,  as  a 
liberal,  he  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  Southamp- 
ton in  the  battles  of  the  company  till  its  dissolution 
in  1624.  He  shared  also  the  latter  Earl's  love  of 
poetry  and  of  poets.  To  him  in  the  Essex  days  of 
X599>  Southampton  is  sending  "certain  songs" 
that  he  may  share  his  delight  in  them.  As  Baron 
Penshurst  in  1603, and  afterward  as  Lord  Lisle,  Sidney 
threw  open  his  home  at  Penshurst  to  the  poets — Ben 
Jonson  and  many  another  friend  of  Shakespeare. 
That  the  Sidney  and  Shakespeare  of  this  circle  of 
common  acquaintance  did  not  know  each  other  is, 
to  say  the  least,  unlikely. 


Virginia  Company  17 

The  interests  and  intimacies  of  Shakespeare  and 
Henry  Neville,  of  Billingbear  in  Berkshire,  coincided 
in  half  a  dozen  different  ways.  Another  of  Essex's 
knights  of  Cadiz,  Sir  Henry  had  participated  in  the 
Earl's  conspiracy  of  1601,  had  been  convicted  of 
treason,  thrown  into  the  Tower  with  Southampton, 
and  held  there  till  the  accession  of  James  I.  He 
was  for  years  a  close  companion  of  Shakespeare's 
devoted  panegyrist,  Hugh  Holland,  and  of  Holland's 
friend,  Christopher  Brooke,  another  of  Shakespeare's 
personal  admirers.  He  was  an  excellent  patron  of 
poets,  this  Sir  Henry — of  Davies  of  Hereford,  Ben 
Jonson,  Beaumont,  and  Fletcher,  all  well  known 
to  Shakespeare.  His  name  is  to  be  seen  scribbled 
over  the  fly-leaf  of  a  manuscript  of  "Mr.  Frauncis 
Bacon's"  essays  and  speeches  (about  1597)  together 
with  those  of  Bacon  (a  relative)  and  Shakespeare: 
authorities  say,  by  Davies  of  Hereford,  the  friend 
of  all  three.  Neville  was  early  interested  in  the  Vir- 
ginia enterprise,  a  member  of  the  council  from  1607 
till  his  death  in  1615,  and  one  of  its  Patriots  and  a 
leader  of  the  Independent  party  in  Parliament. 
His  independence,  indeed,  prevented  him,  in  1612, 
from  becoming  Secretary  of  State.  His  son  and  suc- 
cessor, of  the  same  name,  was  a  subscriber  to  the 
Plantation  in  1611;  and  one  of  the  daughters,  Eliza- 
beth, married  a  brother  of  Sir  William  Berkeley, 
afterwards  Governor  of  Virginia. 

Thomas  West,  third  Lord  De  la  Warr,  whom  I 
have  mentioned  as  of  the  Essex  group,  had  taken 


1 8  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

part  with  them  in  the  uprising  of  1601  and  been 
imprisoned  therefor.  A  member,  since  1609,  of  the 
Virginia  Council,  he  remained  always  a  close  political 
ally  of  Southampton,  Pembroke,  Neville,  and  other 
old  friends  of  Essex.  While  he  was  governing  Vir- 
ginia in  1610-11,  we  find  his  younger  brother,  John, 
habitually  frequenting  a  select  and  convivial  dining 
club  in  company  with  Shakespeare's  friends,  Chris- 
topher Brooke  and  Hugh  Holland.  But  of  that 
later.  In  the  history  of  Virginia  Lord  De  la  Warr 
plays  a  critical  role.  If  it  had  not  been  for  his  ar- 
rival in  the  nick  of  time  "before  Algarnoone  Fort 
the  sixt  of  June,"  1610,  with  reinforcements  and 
supplies,  the  colony  would  have  been  abandoned 
by  Gates  and  his  party.  And  for  this  reason,  if  no 
other,  the  claim  made  for  De  la  Warr — "If  any  man 
can  be  called  the  founder  of  Virginia  he  is  the  man"  * 
— may  be  justified.  Though  empowered  to  rule 
by  martial  law  of  draconic  seventy,  his  short  period 
of  office  was  on  the  whole  beneficial,  and  his  services 
were  acknowledged  by  the  colonists  as  well  as  by 
the  authorities  at  home. 

The  Sir  Thomas  Gates  whom  I  have  just  men- 
tioned forms  a  significant  link  between  Shakespeare 
and  the  affairs  of  the  Virginia  Company.  Though 
we  have  no  testimony  concerning  his  immediate  ac- 
quaintance with  Shakespeare  we  know  that  they 
had  associations  and  informations  in  common. 
Gates,  like  Pembroke  and  Neville,  was  a  knight  of 
1  Gen.  U.  S.,  II,  1049. 


Virginia  Company  19 

the  Essex  creation  and  supporter  of  the  liberal 
faction  in  the  Virginia  Company.  With  his  adven- 
tures in  the  New  World  in  1609-10  Shakespeare  was 
extraordinarily  familiar.  In  The  Tempest,  written 
soon  afterward,  he  makes  use  of  minute  details  of 
Gates's  shipwreck  off  Bermuda  in  1609,  of  his  life 
on  the  island,  and  of  his  experiences  as  lieutenant- 
general  and  administrator  of  Virginia.  Of  these 
details  some,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  were  derived 
from  a  confidential  account  set  down  in  the  colony, 
brought  over  to  England  by  Gates,  and  not  made 
public  for  years  after  Shakespeare's  death.  Sir 
Thomas  was  one  of  the  original  incorporators  in 
1606  under  the  first  charter  for  Virginia,  and  was 
member  of  the  council  under  the  second,  in  1609. 
The  next  year  he  became  the  "first  sole  and  ab- 
solute governor  of  the  colony;"  and  from  the  middle 
of  1611  till  April,  1614,  he  was  again  the  ranking 
officer.  Of  him,  five  years  later,  Sir  Edwin  Sandys 
said,  "Sir  Thomas  Gates  had  the  Honour  to  all  pos- 
terity of  being  the  first  named  in  his  Majesty's 
Patent  and  Grant  of  Virginia,  and  was  also  the  first 
that  by  his  wisdom,  Industry,  and  Valour,  accom- 
panied with  exceeding  Pains  and  Patience  in  the 
Midst  of  many  Difficulties,  had  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  present  prosperous  State  of  the  Colony."  1 
In  November,  1620,  King  James  appointed  Gates 
one  of  the  "first  moderne  and  present  Councill 
established  at  Plymouth,  in  the  county  of  Devon, 
1  Brown,  Genesis,  II,  894;  Records  of  the  Virginia  Co.,  I,  21. 


2O  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

for   the   planting,    ruling,   ordering,    and   governing 
of  New  England  in  America." 


II 

Other  liberals  of  the  Virginia  Company  impinge 
upon  Shakespeare's  orbit,  who  were  not  distinc- 
tively of  the  Essex  provenience.  Some  of  them 
knew  him.  Others  knew  of  him  and  probably  were 
acquainted  with  him,  for  they  were  personally  con- 
nected with  his  friends  among  poets,  playwrights, 
or  actors, — or  with  those  who  paid  contemporary 
tribute  to  his  personality  and  genius.  This  group 
we  may  style  the  legal-literary.  First  to  be  men- 
tioned are  Christopher  Brooke  of  Lincoln's  Inn  and 
John  Selden  of  the  Inner  Temple.  The  former,  of 
the  Virginia  Council  from  1609,  was  a  powerful 
member  of  the  company  until  its  dissolution.  The 
latter  was  a  member  of  the  company  after  the  adop- 
tion of  the  third  charter  and  an  adviser  in  legal 
affairs.  With  Selden  Brooke  drafted  several  of  the 
liberal  codes  of  law  and  government  for  Virginia. 
In  Parliament,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  the  two 
friends  withstood  the  King's  interference  with  the 
affairs  of  the  corporation.  They  were  both,  in  their 
hours  of  ease,  poets  after  a  fashion,  members  of 
the  pastoral  coterie  of  the  Inns  of  Court;  and  one 
of  their  most  cherished  proteges  in  that  coterie  was 
William  Ferrar,  the  younger  son  of  Nicholas,  at  whose 
house  the  Virginia  Courts  were  held  for  many  years. 


Virginia  Company  21 

Brooke's  bosom  friend  was  the  poet,  Donne.  He 
was  also  intimate  with  Shakespeare's  fellow-drama- 
tists, Jonson  and  Drayton,  and  his  epigrammatic 
admirer,  Davies  of  Hereford;  and  he  was  thoroughly 
versed  in  the  business  affairs  of  Shakespeare's  cor- 
poration, for  he  acted  as  advocate  for  certain  pro- 
prietors of  the  Blackfriars  theatre  at  a  time  when 
the  poet  was  still  one  of  the  seven  shareholders. 
That  was  in  1612.  The  two  shareholders  involved 
were  Shakespeare's  old  friends  and  fellow-players, 
Burbage  and  Heminges.  The  case  was  a  bill  of  com- 
plaint brought  before  the  Court  of  Chancery  by 
one  Kirkham  for  recovery  of  profits  in  the  Black- 
friars  playhouse.  Brooke  was  one  of  several  barris- 
ters engaged;  but  the  records  show  that  he  played 
a  very  important  part  in  having  the  "plaintiff's  bill 
clearly  and  absolutely  dismissed  out  of  this  courte."  l 
Two  years  later  this  professional  adviser  and  con- 
fidant of  Shakespeare's  partners  published  a  poem 
called  The  Ghost  of  Richard  III,  in  which  he  not 
only  paraphrased  and  quoted  lines  from  the  poet's 
Richard  III,  but  paid  "graceful  tribute"  to  Shake- 
speare himself.  "To  him  that  impt  my  fame,"  says 
Brooke's  Ghost  of  Richard, 

To  him  that  impt  my  fame  with  Clio's  quill, 
Whose  magick  rais'd  me  from  oblivion's  den; 
That  writ  my  storie  on  the  Muses'  hill, 
And  with  my  actions  dignifi'd  his  pen: 

1  Greenstreet  Papers,  VIII,  in  Fleery,  Hist.  Stage,  250. 


22  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

He  that  from  Helicon  sends  many  a  rill, 

Whose  nectared  veins  are  drunke  by  thirstie  men; 

Crown'd  be  his  stile  with  fame,  his  head  with  bayes; 

And  none  detract,  but  gratulate  his  praise. 

Such  whole-hearted  appreciation  of  Shakespeare 
still  living,  of  his  magic,  his  demiurgic  genius,  his 
nectared  vein, — nay,  more,  such  generous  delight 
in  the  praise  that  others  gave  him — sounds  a  very 
personal  note,  indeed. 

"In  the  paper  buildings"  of  the  Inner  Temple 
"which  looke  towards  the  garden,"  as  Aubrey  tells 
us,  Brooke's  ally  in  politics  and  poetry,  John  Selden, 
had  his  chambers.  There  he  kept  "a  plentifull  table 
and  was  never  without  learned  company."  Of 
that  company  were  Shakespeare's  Jonson  and  Dray- 
ton — frequently,  as  we  know.  And  of  it  too,  we 
may  reasonably  surmise,  were  their  loving  disciples, 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  For  the  former  was  of  the 
Inner  Temple  himself,  and  in  1613,  its  poet  and 
masque-maker;  and  the  latter  was  of  Selden's  social 
and  family  connection.  For  the  past  four  years 
these  Castor  and  Pollux  dramatists  had  been  writ- 
ing plays  for  Shakespeare's  company  at  Court  and 
the  Globe  and  Blackfriars;  and  in  1613  Fletcher 
was  engaged  in  the  completion  of  Shakespeare's 
Henry  VIII. 

That  Shakespeare  knew  Sir  Dudley  Digges,  an- 
other legal  and  literary  patriot  of  the  Virginia  Coun- 
cil, we  may  be  practically  certain.  There  was  never 
a  more  devoted  worshipper  of  the  poet  in  the  flesh 


Virginia  Company  23 

and  spirit  than  Sir  Dudley's  brother,  Leonard.  The 
lad  was  twenty-one  when  Dudley  joined  the  Council, 
and  but  twenty-eight  when  Shakespeare  died.  Of 
that  death  no  contemporary  has  written  with  more 
abiding  sense  of  personal  loss.  His  verses  for  the 
Folio  of  1623,  To  the  Memorie  of  the  deceased 
Authour,  are  addressed  not  to  a  name  but  to  a  man 
whom  alive  he  had  viewed  and  honored  and  whom 
he  misses: 

Shakespeare,  at  length  thy  pious  fellowes  give 

The  world  thy  Workes;-thy  Workes  by  which  out-live 

Thy  Tombe,  thy  name  must;  when  that  stone  is  rent 

And  Time  dissolves  thy  Stratford  moniment, 

Here  we  alive  shall  view  thee  still.    This  Booke, 

When  Brasse  and  Marble  fade,  shall  make  thee  looke 

Fresh  to  all  Ages  .... 

Nor  shall  I  e're  beleeve,  or  thinke  thee  dead — 

Though  mist — untill  our  bankrout  Stage  be  sped 

(Impossible)  with  some  new  strain  t'  out-do 

Passions  of  Juliet  and  her  Romeo. 

And  in  another  tribute,  written  before  1635,  and 
prefixed  to  the  edition  of  Shakespeare's  Poems  is- 
sued in  1640,  it  is  the  memory  of  the  man  Shake- 
speare that  he  cherishes — 

Poets  are  born  not  made:  when  I  would  prove 
This  truth,  the  glad  remembrance  I  must  love 
Of  never-dying  Shakespeare,  who  alone 
Is  argument  enough  to  make  that  one. 

Nor  has  anyone  borne  more  convincing  testimony 
to  the  poet's  originality  and  ease  of  composition, 


24  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

and  his  unquestioned  authorship  of  the  plays  eulo- 
gized— Julius  Caesar,  Othello,  Henry  IV,  Much 
Ado,  and  Twelfth  Night — and  to  their  supreme 
popularity  when  acted  upon  the  stage  in  Shake- 
speare's day,  and  when  Leonard  was  spectator  of 
the  "ravish'd  Audience."  The  Diggeses  came  of 
an  academic  and  literary  family.  That  in  the  little 
world  of  Jacobean  London  Sir  Dudley,  himself  a 
scholar,  diplomat  and  author,  did  not  know  the  be- 
loved idol  of  his  brother  is  inconceivable. 

Sir  Dudley  was  an  ardent  devotee  to  the  advance- 
ment of  the  Virginia  and  Bermuda  enterprises  from 
his  appointment  to  the  Council  in  1609  to  the  day 
of  his  death  in  1639.  He  was  in  close  touch  with 
Southampton,  Brooke  and  Selden;  and  in  Charles  I's 
reign,  with  Edward  Sackville,  the  Ferrars,  and  other 
liberals,  he  still  strove  to  regain  for  the  colony  the 
privileges  which  had  made  it  for  a  time  practically 
self-governing.  Two  of  Digges's  sons  were  likewise 
concerned.  The  younger,  Edward,  having  settled 
in  Virginia,  preserved  there  the  patriotic  tradition 
of  the  family,  and  during  the  Commonwealth  was 
one  of  those  three  Puritan  governors,  elected  by 
the  Assembly  of  Virginia,  under  whom  the  colony 
enjoyed  its  most  prosperous  days,  its  most  inde- 
pendent administration,  and  its  fullest  measure  of 
popular  rights. 

With  more  than  one  of  the  Essex  group  of  the 
Virginia  Council  and  the  legal-literary  group,  it  is 
easy  to  link  Sir  Edward  Sackville,  later,  fourth  Earl 


Virginia  Company  25 

of  Dorset.  The  Sackvilles,  Fletchers  and  Seldens 
were  allied  by  intermarriage.  To  Shakespeare's 
Jonson  and  Drayton  Sir  Edward  was  a  kindly  pa- 
tron; and  of  Southampton,  Pembroke  and  Brooke 
he  was  a  loyal  colleague  in  the  promotion  of  the 
colony  in  and  after  1612.  When  the  King  was 
wrecking  the  Virginia  Company  in  1622-24,  Sack- 
ville  resisted  with  Southampton  and  Sandys;  and, 
though  a  cavalier  under  Charles  I,  he  remained  till 
his  death,  in  1652,  a  supporter  of  the  rights  of  Vir- 
ginia. 

Ill 

An  amusing  set  of  macaronic  Latin  verses,  en- 
titled Mr.  Ho  skins,  his  Convivium  Philosophicum,1 
written  between  1608  and  1611,  enlarges  our  pur- 
view of  the  social  world  in  which  some  of  Shake- 
speare's friends  of  the  Virginia  Company  moved. 
We  catch  here  a  glimpse  of  a  very  genial  club  to 
which  belonged  no  fewer  than  nine  of  the  liberal  pro- 
moters of  the  Virginia  enterprise.  The  membership 
numbered  twelve — lawyers,  statesmen,  patrons  of 
letters,  poets,  architects,  travellers,  country  knights 
and  squires;  and  the  usual  place  of  dining  was  the 
Mitre  Inn  close  by  the  Inns  of  Court.  The  building 
still  stands  at  the  top  of  Mitre  Court,  a  few  yards 
back  from  the  thoroughfare  of  Fleet  Street. 

1  Printed  by  A.  Clark  in  his  Aubrey's  Brief  Lives,  II,  50-51. 
See  also  Cal.  State  Papers  (Dom.),  Sept.  2,  1611;  and  C.  M. 
Gayley,  Francis  Beaumont,  Dramatist,  146-149. 


26  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

The  Latin  invitation  to  the  symposium,  as  trans- 
lated by  a  contemporary,  opens — 

Whosoever  is  contented 
That  a  number  be  convented, 

Enough  but  not  too  many; 
The  Miter  is  the  place  decreed — 
For  witty  jests  and  cleanly  feed, 

The  betterest  of  any; 

and  the  author  proceeds  to  rehearse  the  names  and 
characteristics  of  the  jolly  souls  "convented." 
Among  them  we  recognize  at  once  Christopher 
Brooke,  his  chamber-fellow  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  John 
Donne,  and  Sir  Henry  Neville;  also  Hugh  Holland 
of  the  Mermaid  Club,  who  wrote  a  few  years  later 
the  tearful  sonnet  on  Shakespeare's  death,  be- 
ginning, 

Those  hands,  which  you  so  clapt,  go  now,  and  wring 
You  Britaines  brave;  for  done  are  Shakespeare's  dayes: 
His  dayes  are  done,  that  made  the  dainty  Playes, 
Which  make  the  Globe  of  heav'n  and  earth  to  ring; 

and  ending, 

For  though  his  line  of  life  went  soone  about, 
The  life  yet  of  his  lines  shall  never  out. 

Not  only  had  Shakespeare  such  a  nucleus  of  associa- 
tion, personal  or  literary,  and  already  ascertained, 
in  the  club,  most  of  the  commensals  were  in  close 
touch  with  his  friends  in  town  or  country.  Four  of 
them  were  of  the  Virginia  Council:  Brooke,  Neville, 


Virginia  Company  27 

Sir  Robert  Phillips — appointed  in  1614,  a  supporter 
of  Southampton  and  Sandys,  a  leader  of  the  popular 
party  in  Parliament,  imprisoned  by  James  I  in  1622 
— and  Richard  Martin,  a  learned  Bencher  of  the 
Middle  Temple  and  friend  of  Selden.  Martin  was 
much  interested  in  dramatic  pageantry:  in  1613, 
one  of  the  "undertakers"  of  that  "Memorable 
Maske"  for  the  marriage  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth, 
in  which  the  chief  actors  posed  as  Virginian  priests 
and  princes.  He  was  a  friend  of  its  author,  George 
Chapman,  variously  connected  in  literature  and  life 
with  Shakespeare  and  closely  with  Ben  Jonson. 
Of  the  regular  drama  as  well  Martin  was  a  patron, 
and  more  especially  of  that  written  by  his  "true 
lover"  Jonson.  Together  the  twain  used  to  fre- 
quent the  merry  meetings  of  the  poets  at  the  Mer- 
maid in  Bread  Street.  An  opponent  of  monopolies 
under  Queen  Elizabeth,  Martin  was  always  a  liberal. 
He  joined  the  Virginia  Company  in  1609,  became 
member  of  the  council  in  1612,  and  in  1614  made  a 
speech  before  Parliament  in  support  of  the  policy 
of  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  Lord  De  la  Warr  and 
other  proponents  of  Virginian  liberties  that  is  not 
yet  forgotten.  He  ripped  up  the  procrastinating 
and  disorderly  procedure  of  Parliament  with  such 
temerity  and  scorn  that  it  required  all  the  skill  of 
his  fellows  in  the  Virginia  Council  and  the  Mitre 
Club  to  extricate  him  from  the  consequences.1 

Of  the  Mitre  fellowship  five  other  convivial  souls 
1  For  the  outline  see  Neill,  Va.  Co.  of  London,  68-72. 


28  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

were  "adventurers"  in  the  Virginia  enterprise, 
though  not  members  of  the  council.  One  of  them, 
John  Hoskins,  a  serjeant  of  the  Middle  Temple, 
had  joined  the  Virginia  Company  in  1611.  In  1614 
we  find  him,  also,  asserting  the  cause  of  popular 
rights  as  against  the  favoritism  of  the  king  with 
such  spirit  in  Parliament  that  he  is  given  a  chance 
to  cool  his  ardor  in  the  tower.  Beloved  of  Brooke, 
Holland  and  Martin  and  of  the  dramatists  and 
poets  of  their  circle  and  Shakespeare's,  he  was  of 
"excellent  witt"  that  commended  him  "to  all  in- 
geniose  persons,"  and  an  incomparable  writer  of 
drolleries.  He  is  the  Mr.  Hoskins  to  whom,  as  we 
have  seen  above,  the  macaronic  invitation  to  this 
"symposiaque"  at  the  Mitre  is  attributed.  An- 
other of  those  "convented"  was  Richard  Connock, 
or  Conyoke,  a  member  of  Parliament,  a  supporter 
of  Walter  Raleigh  and  an  "adventurer"  of  1612. 
A  third  was  John  West,  younger  brother  to  Lord 
De  la  Warr,  first  governor  of  Virginia.  Settling, 
later,  in  the  colony,  West  became  himself  governor 
in  1635,  and  died  there.  Of  his  descendants  many 
have  been  distinguished  in  the  history  of  this  coun- 
try. A  fourth  was  John  Donne.  An  adherent  of 
Essex  in  1596-7,  his  political,  literary,  and  social 
affiliations  were  in  half  a  dozen  ways  interwoven 
with  those  of  Shakespeare.  With  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany he  was  first  formally  connected  in  1622;  and 
in  that  year,  as  "Brother  of  this  Companie  and  of 
their  Counsell,"  and  Dean  of  St.  Paul's,  he  preached 


Virginia  Company  29 

their  annual  sermon.  With  rare  beauty  and  proph- 
ecy he  alludes  to  "the  great  work  performed  in 
the  beginning  of  a  Church  and  Commonwealth  in 
America,  where  their  children  could  be  well  accom- 
modated, and  adds  that  those  that  were  young  would 
live  to  see  that  'You  have  made  this  Island,  which 
is  but  the  suburbs  of  the  Old  World,  a  bridge,  a 
gallery  to  the  New;  to  join  all  to  that  world  that 
shall  never  grow  old,  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.'"  * 
Last  of  these  Mitre  Club  subscribers  to  the  colonial 
venture,  a  lifelong  friend  of  Donne  and  Brooke, 
celebrated  by  Ben  Jonson  and  acquainted  from 
youth  up  with  that  other  intimate  of  Shakespeare, 
Drayton,  was  Sir  Henry  Goodere  of  Polesworth  in 
Warwickshire.  His  uncle,  of  the  same  name,  also 
of  Polesworth,  had  been  "the  first  cherisher  of 
Drayton's  muse,"  and  our  Sir  Henry  had  married 
one  of  the  Polesworth  cousins,  the  "Panape"  of 
Drayton's  verse.  The  family  of  Goodere  had  fallen 
under  the  royal  disfavor  in  Elizabeth's  earlier  days; 
and,  apparently,  Sir  Henry  the  younger  had  been 
an  Essex  sympathizer.  He  was  with  the  Earl  in 
Ireland  and  was  there  knighted  by  him,  in  1599. 
His  name  appears  among  those  of  subscribers  to  the 
Virginia  enterprise  in  the  list  of  1611. 

IV 

The  mention  of  the  Gooderes  and  of  Warwickshire 
reminds  us  that,  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of 
1  Neill,  Virginia  Company  of  London,  361-2. 


30  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

Stratford,  Shakespeare  had  several  acquaintances 
who  were  prominent  investors  in  the  Virginia  under- 
taking. Since  1597,  Shakespeare  had  been  the 
master  of  New  Place  in  his  native  town.  As  the 
bearer  of  a  coat  of  arms,  and  as  proprietor  after 
1601  of  large  holdings  in  the  neighborhood  of  Strat- 
ford, he  had  become  one  of  the  landed  gentry.  From 
1601  on  he  spent  part  of  every  year  at  New  Place; 
and  about  1611,  though  still  maintaining  certain 
relations  with  his  old  partners  in  London,  he  made 
it  his  permanent  abode.1  Of  the  neighboring  county 
families  one  of  the  best  known  to  him  was  that  of 
Clifford  Chambers,  an  ancient  and  beautiful  seat, 
about  two  miles  across  the  fields  from  Stratford,  in 
Gloucestershire.  There  was  much  talk  at  Clifford 
about  the  Virginia  plantation:  for,  during  Shake- 
speare's later  years,  Sir  Henry  Rainsford,  lord  of  the 
manor,  was  a  member  of  the  company.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  council,  too,  perhaps  as  early  as  1613, 
certainly  by  1617-18.  We  find  him  further  investing 
in  the  corporation  as  late  as  1620,  when  he  bought 
shares  of  his  fellow-councillor,  Sir  Thomas  Gates;  2 
and  again  in  the  following  year  he  added  to  his 
shares.  Lady  Rainsford  was  both  cousin  and  sister- 
in-law  of  the  Sir  Henry  Goodere  whom  we  met  in 
the  Mitre  Club.  She  is  the  Anne  Goodere,  the 
"flower  of  womanhood"  of  Drayton's  youthful 
homage, — the  divine  "Idea"  to  whom  through  life 

1  Sir  Sidney  Lee,  Life  of  Shakespeare  (ed.  1915),  450. 
»Gen.  U.  S.,  II,  797,  975- 


Virginia  Company  31 

he  is  "still  inviolate."  Rainsford,  himself,  "Past 
all  degrees  that  was  so  dear  to  me"  is  Drayton's 
exemplar  of  "what  a  friend  should  be."  Clifford 
Manor  was  Drayton's  yearly  resort  in  summer:  for 
him  "Many  a  time  the  Muses'  quiet  port."  And 
near  by  was  his  fellow  dramatist's  hospitable  New 
Place,  where,  according  to  a  story  handed  down  by 
a  contemporary  of  Drayton  and  Jonson,  Shakespeare 
entertained  those  two  old  friends  at  a  "merry  meet- 
ing," shortly  before  his  death. 

Shakespeare's  son-in-law,  Dr.  John  Hall  of  Old 
Town,  Stratford,  was  the  Rainsfords'  family  physi- 
cian. He  once  cured  Drayton  while  at  Clifford  of  a 
"  tertian,"  and  he  records  in  his  observation  book  the 
"syrup  of  violets"  that  he  prescribed  for  the  "ex- 
cellent poet."  About  1600,  Dr.  Hall  is  attending 
Lady  Rainsford  after  childbirth;  and  describing 
her  as  "near  27,  beautiful  and  of  a  gallant  structure 
of  body."  On  other  pages  of  his  notebook  are  en- 
tered curious  and  somewhat  repellent  recipes  with 
which  from  time  to  time  he  relieved  her  ailments; 
and  he  is  still  attending  her  as  late  as  1634. l  Not 
only  through  Hall  and  Drayton  is  the  personal 
intercourse  of  Shakespeare  and  Rainsford  assured 
for  us,  but  through  the  family  of  Combe  at  Strat- 
ford, long  standing  acquaintances  and  good  friends 
of  both  the  dramatist  and  the  lord  of  Clifford  Manor. 
When  in  1613,  John  Combe  made  his  will,  Sir  Henry 

lDr.  John  Hall's  Select  Observations,  London,  1679;  pp.  18, 
134,  158  (Obs.  LXVIII). 


32  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

Rainsford  of  Clifford  Chambers  was  an  overseer  of 
it  "receiving  5/.  for  his  service,  while  Lady  Rains- 
ford  was  allotted  405.  wherewith  to  buy  a  memorial 
ring."  And  "to  Mr.  William  Shakespeare  he  left 
five  pounds."  *  It  is  interesting  to  note  this  coupling 
of  the  names  of  Rainsford  and  Shakespeare  in  the 
year  when  the  latter  was  having  his  comedy  of 
Bermudan  and  Virginian  allusion  revived  at  Court, 
and  about  the  time  when  the  former  was  allying  him- 
self with  the  Virginia  Company.  Interesting,  too,  to 
recall  that  both  Jonson  and  Drayton  had  written 
their  names  into  the  literary  history  of  Virginia  some 
seven  or  eight  years  earlier.  But  of  that  presently. 
The  circle  in  which  the  Combes,  Rainsfords,  and 
the  master  of  New  Place  moved  included  various 
county  families  about  Stratford:  prominent  among 
these — the  Verneys  and  the  Grevilles.  Of  the  Ver- 
neys,  one,  Sir  Richard  of  Compton  Verney,  was  an 
executor  of  the  testamentary  document  mentioned 
above.  And  Verney's  brother-in-law,  Sir  Fulke 
Greville,  later  Lord  Brooke,  the  political  philosopher, 
statesman,  and  poet,  was  the  friend  of  more  than 
one  of  Shakespeare's  associates  and  the  patron  of 
some.  Davies  of  Hereford,  who  records  at  one  time 
his  admiration  of  Shakespeare,  records  but  a  few 
years  later  his  admiration  of  Shakespeare's  neighbor 
Greville; 2  and  to  Greville,  in  whose  household  he 

1  Lee,  Life  of  Shakespeare  (ed.  1915),  471. 

2  Microcosmos,  1603,  p.  215;  and  a  sonnet  to  Greville,  written 
before  1609,  in  the  Scourge  of  Folly  (1610),  p.  194. 


Virginia  Company  33 

lived  as  a  page,  Davenant,  Shakespeare's  young 
friend,  and  probably  godson,  acknowledged  his 
deep  indebtedness.  Greville's  estate  of  Beauchamp 
Court,  Alcester,  was  but  nine  miles  from  Stratford. 
During  the  period,  moreover,  of  Shakespeare's 
residence  at  New  Place,  Stratford,  Greville  was 
Recorder  of  the  borough,  and  justice  of  the  peace, 
paid  frequent  visits  to  the  town,  was  entertained  by 
its  officials,  and  knew  everyone  of  importance  there.1 
Shakespeare  and  he  were  not  far  apart  in  years,  and 
they  had  interests  as  well  as  acquaintances  in  com- 
mon. Though  diverse  in  method  and  purpose  of 
literary  creativity,  in  some  fields  of  poetic  taste  they 
were  at  one;  and  one  idol  of  poetry — Sir 'Philip 
Sidney — both  worshipped.  In  political  outlook 
they  differed  sometimes  in  choice  of  protagonist 
and  means,  but  generally  they  saw  eye  to  eye.  The 
charm  and  promise  of  Essex  they  both  celebrated, 
and  in  his  downfall  both  were  afflicted.  Of  that 
"gallant  young  Earl,"  as  he  calls  him,  Greville  was 
not  only  lover  but  kinsman;  and  he  had  lived  at 
Essex  House  for  the  seven  years  preceding  the 
Earl's  arrest.  The  revolt  he  deplored;  but  he  con- 
tended that  Essex  was  innocent  of  treasonable  in- 
tention and  attributed  his  death  to  the  machination 
of  self-seeking  flatterers  of  the  Queen.2  The  Queen 
herself,  Greville,  unlike  Shakespeare,  consistently 

1  Lee,  Life  of  Sh.,  pp.  467-8. 

2  The  Life  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney  in  Lord  Brooke's  Works  (ed. 
Grosart),  1870,  Vol.  IV,  157-161. 


34  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

glorified,  for  he  regarded  her  policy  as  the  only  bul- 
wark of  monarchical  government.  That  he  was  no 
absolutist,  however — on  the  contrary,  a  liberal  or 
constitutional  monarchist — his  writings  and  his 
political  career  fully  attest. 

Here  again  our  dramatist  comes  into  touch  with  a 
leader  in  the  Virginia  movement.  For  Greville  was 
a  member  of  the  Royal  Council  for  the  plantation 
as  early  as  1607,  probably  representing  the  second, 
or  northern,  colony;  and  of  the  London  company, 
we  know  that  he  was  a  member  in  I6I7-1  That, 
under  James,  Greville  should  have  favored  the 
"Court"  or  "Spanish"  party  is  impossible.  As 
far  back  as  1584,  with  his  kinsman  and  dear  friend, 
Sir  Philip  Sidney,  and  with  Sir  Francis  Drake,  he 
had  cooperated  in  the  memorable  scheme  for  colo- 
nizing America  with  English  protestants  in  order 
to  check  the  power  of  Spain  and  Rome.  These 
projectors  of  the  "first  propounded  voyage  to 
America,"  as  Greville,  in  his  Life  of  Sidney,  calls  it, 
wise  in  advance  of  their  age,  would  have  established 
there  an  abiding  and  extending  plantation:  "an  em- 
porium for  the  confluence  of  all  nations  that  love 
or  profess  any  kind  of  virtue  or  commerce.  .  .  .  To 
the  nobly  ambitious  the  fayre  stage  of  America  to 
win  honour  in.  To  the  religious  divines,  besides  a 
new  apostolicall  calling  of  the  last  heathen  to  the 
Christian  faith,  a  large  field  of  reducing  poor  Chris- 
tians, misled  by  the  idolatry  of  Rome,  to  their 
1  Brown,  Gen.  U.  S.,  I,  93;  II,  906. 


Virginia  Company  35 

mother  primitive  Church.  To  the  ingenuously  in- 
dustrious, variety  of  natural  richesses,  for  new 
mysteries  and  manufactures  to  work  upon.  To  the 
merchant,  with  a  simple  people,  a  fertile  and  inex- 
hastible  earth.  To  the  fortune-bound,  liberty.  To 
the  curious,  a  fruitfull  womb  of  innovation." 1 
Greville's  retirement  to  private  life  for  the  eleven 
years  succeeding  Elizabeth's  death  is  accounted  for 
by  dissatisfaction  with  the  arbitrary  trend  of  James's 
rule.  "The  further  I  went,"  says  he,  "the  more 
discomfortable  I  found  those  new  revolutions  of 
time"  2 — revolutions,  as  we  have  seen,  increasingly 
subversive  not  only  of  domestic  but  colonial  liberty. 
Of  these  years  the  last  four  were  those  that  offered 
Shakespeare  and  Greville  most  chance  for  neigh- 
borly intercourse.  While  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer, during  the  seven  years  which  began  with 
1614,  Greville  must  have  sympathized  with  the 
policy  of  Southampton,  Sandys,  and  their  fellow- 
patriots.  "The  high  waies  of  ambitious  Gover- 
nours,"  he  writes,  "hasten  to  their  own  desolation 
and  ruin."  He  scorns  the  "misgoverned  courts  of 
princes."  The  root  of  despotic  authority  is  "the 
lavish  giving  away  your  own  liberties."  Among 
the  dissentients,  headed  by  Robert  Rich,  Earl  of 
Warwick,  who  conspired  in  1623  to  surrender  the 
charter  rights  of  the  colony  to  the  King,  his  name 
does  not  appear.  After  his  death  the  connection 

»Lord  Brooke's  Works,  Vol.  IV,  118-19. 
a  Works,  IV,  215. 


36  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

of  his  family  with  the  American  plantations  con- 
tinued. His  cousin,  the  second  Lord  Brooke,  as- 
sisted in  the  colonization  of  Connecticut. 

Only  one  of  Greville's  works,  the  tragedy  of  Mus- 
tapha,  was  published  in  his  day  or  Shakespeare's. 
But  here,  as  in  his  political  treatises,  we  find  much 
that  resembles  Shakespeare's  sanity  of  view:  the 
rejection  of  the  divine  sanction  of  kings,  and  of  that 
oligarchical  tyranny  to  which  the  "style  of  optimates. 
and  democracy"  alike  tends;  the  insistence  upon 
constitutional  monarchy  sustained  by  law  and  ad- 
ministered by  wise  men  in  due  degree  of  merit  and 
fitness;  the  recognition  of  the  frailty  and  pathos  of 
humanity,  but  likewise  of  the  wisdom  and  mercy 
of  a  higher  power.  Greville's  religion  takes  refuge 
not  in  an  appointed  ecclesiastical  discipline  but  in  a 
church  invisible — "of  the  spirit  only,  choosing  spiri- 
tual heirs."  Such,  if  Shakespeare  had  anywhere 
formulated  his  sovereign  tolerance,  would,  we  may 
imagine,  have  been  his  solution,  too. 

V 

In  the  ten  years  beginning  with  1606  the  Virginia 
Council  was  not  at  any  one  time  large  in  numbers. 
In  1607  there  were  thirty-nine  councillors;  and  we 
have  found  that  at  least  three  of  them  moved  in 
Shakespeare's  London  circle,  Sir  Edwin  Sandys, 
Sir  Henry  Neville  and  Sir  Fulke  Greville, — the  last, 
as  we  have  seen,  of  his  immediate  Warwickshire 
circle  as  well.  In  the  reconstituted  Council  of  1609 


Virginia  Company  37 

(fifty  members  in  all)  there  appear  the  names  of 
three  whom  Shakespeare  personally  knew,  the  Earl 
of  Southampton,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  Chris- 
topher Brooke — intimates  of  one  or  another  of  those 
already  mentioned.  Beside  these  there  were  in  that 
council  Sir  Dudley  Digges  (whose  brother  "loves 
the  glad  remembrance  of  never-dying  Shakespeare," 
"cannot  think  him  dead"),  Lord  Lisle,  Lord  De  la' 
Warr  and  Sir  Thomas  Gates,  all  of  whom  spoke  with 
friends  of  Shakespeare  among  the  great,  the  learned 
and  the  poetic,  at  every  turn.  Of  the  fifteen  coun- 
cillors added  in  1612,  Philip  Herbert,  Earl  of  Mont- 
gomery, had  distinguished  the  "Authour  living" 
with  his  favor,  and  Richard  Martin  was  intimate  with 
many  of  his  legal  and  literary  friends.  Between  1612 
and  the  time  of  Shakespeare's  death  about  eighteen 
new  councillors  were  appointed :  one  of  them  without 
doubt  well  and  familiarly  known  by  Shakespeare, 
his  neighbor  of  Clifford  Chambers,  Sir  Henry 
Rainsford.  In  short,  of  the  eighty-five  members  of 
the  council  during  the  ten  years  preceding  Shake- 
speare's death — persons  of  political  and  financial  im- 
portance, engaged  in  an  unusually  serious  enter- 
prise, and  in  frequent  consultation — at  least  seven 
were  men  with  whom  Shakespeare  had  personal 
intercourse.  And  of  six  more  it  may  be  said  that,  to 
avoid  hearing  him  mentioned  with  admiration  or 
affection  by  their  fellow-councillors,  they  must  have 
stopped  their  ears,  and  that,  to  avoid  meeting  him 
in  the  company  of  their  associates,  they  must  have 


38  Shakespeare  and  the  Liberals  of  the 

turned  the  corner  sharp.  Of  the  stockholders  not 
members  of  the  council,  at  least  five — Selden,  Hos- 
kins,  Sir  Edward  Sackville,  John  Donne,  and  Sir 
Henry  Goodere — had  relations  especially  intimate 
with  men  of  letters  and  of  public  note  who  were 
Shakespeare's  intimates  as  well. 

The  names  given  above  are  merely  a  finger-post 
to  the  ramifications  of  Shakespeare's  acquaintance 
with  the  personnel  of  the  Virginia  Company.  The 
lists  of  subscribers,  whether  councillors  or  ordinary 
adventurers,  so  far  as  published,  include  a  thousand 
or  more  names.  Doubtless  there  are  many  others 
recorded  but  unpublished.  There  were,  moreover, 
some  seventy  city  companies  interested;  but  the 
names  of  the  subscribing  members  are  in  only  a  few 
instances  accessible  in  print.  Scholars  who  have 
access  to  documents  in  the  Public  Record  office, 
the  muniments  of  city  corporations,  and  other 
English  archives  are  in  a  position  to  supplement 
the  roll.  I  am  sure  that  some  such  will  show  that 
I  have  but  touched  the  fringes  of  the  subject.  For 
the  general  public,  too,  the  Virginia  undertaking 
was  at  times  the  absorbing  topic.1  The  name  of 

1The  Mr.  Warden  Field  under  whose  hand  the  "Declaration 
of  the  present  estate  of  the  English  in  Virginia,  with  the  final 
resolucon  of  the  Great  Lotterye  intended  for  their  supply"  was 
entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  March  9,  1614,  was  the  Richard 
Field  who  in  1593  printed  the  first  edition  of  Shakespeare's 
Venus  and  Adonis.  He  was  from  Stratford,  the  son  of  Henry 
Field,  one  of  the  assessors  of  the  estate  of  Shakespeare's  father 
in  1601. 


Virginia  Company  39 

those  who,  from  all  parts  of  the  realm,  took  chances 
in  the  great  lotteries  of  1612  and  1614-15,  is  legion. 
With  how  many  sanguine  adventurers  of  this  class 
Shakespeare  conversed,  we  shall  never  know. 


4O  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   TEMPEST,    AND    AN    UNPUBLISHED    LETTER   FROM 
VIRGINIA 

EVEN  if  Shakespeare  had  not  personally  known 
any  of  the  promoters  of  the  Virginia  enterprise,  it 
is  impossible  that  he  should  have  been  unacquainted 
with,  or  unsympathetic  toward,  the  movement  for 
liberty  in  the  New  World  as  at  home.  In  his  son- 
nets, and  in  plays  written  before  the  first  settlement 
in  Virginia,  he  had,  as  will  in  due  course  be  more 
fully  shown,  put  forward  ideas  similar  to  those  which 
the  Patriots  sought  to  realize — ideas  of  legally  con- 
stituted authority  as  opposed  to  divine  right,  of 
monarchical  responsibility,  of  aristodemocratic  gov- 
ernment, of  individual  freedom  and  political  duty, 
of  equality  before  the  law,  of  justice,  fraternal  effort 
and  allegiance.  His  attitude  in  the  earlier  historical 
plays  toward  the  problem  of  political  cooperation  is 
maintained  in  the  Troilus  and  Cressida,  written  in' 
1602  and  published  with  additions  in  1609,  and  in 
the  Coriolanus,  written  the  latter  part  of  1608  or 
the  beginning  of  1609.  The  attitude  is  in  all  vital 
respects  the  same  as  that  adopted  by  Sir  Edwin 
Sandys,  when  in  1609  he  drafted  the  petition  for  a 
charter  that  should  make  of  Virginia  a  self-govern- 


Letter  from  Virginia  41 

ing  body  politic.  The  political  philosopher  and 
statesman  was  attempting  to  put  into  practice  the 
golden  mean  between  tyranny  and  communism. 
Shakespeare,  whose  philosophy  is  of  observation  and 
imagination,  was  by  no  means  oblivious  of  recorded 
political  provenience  as  well.  In  the  checks  and 
disasters  of  Troilus  and  Cressida,  he  was  portraying 
the  chaos  that  ensues  when  political  "degree"  is 
suffocated.  In  the  civil  disorders  of  Coriolanus,  he 
was  portraying  the  ruin  that  impends  when  govern- 
ment wanders  from  the  golden  mean,  and  aristo- 
cratic arrogance  and  plebeian  turbulence  clash.  The 
reform  that  Sandys  was  seeking  to  make  concrete 
in  a  New  World,  Shakespeare,  though  with  no  refer- 
ence to  America,  as  yet,  was  implying  poetically  in 
"the  weal  of  the  common"  founded  in  ordered  serv- 
ice, justice,  and  patriotism. 

In  May,  1609,  the  efforts  of  Sandys  and  his  asso- 
ciates of  the  Liberal  party  in  the  Virginia  Company 
and  Council  were  rewarded  with  initial  success:  a 
charter  containing  the  embryo  of  liberties  appar- 
ently unassailable  by  royal  prerogative  had  been 
secured  from  King  James.  Shakespeare's  interest 
in  the  historic  as  well  as  the  romantic  significance 
of  colonial  events  during  the  next  two  years  is  writ 
large  in  the  comedy  which  he  first  put  upon  the 
boards  toward  the  end  of  that  period.  To  those 
who  inquire  minutely  and  impartially  into  the  se- 
quence of  events,  this  comedy  of  The  Tempest  will 
reveal  also  a  definite  acquaintance  on  the  part  of 


42  The   Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

the  poet  with  particulars  unpublished  at  the  time, 
and  filed  away  in  manuscript  by  the  inner  circle  of 
the  Virginia  Council. 


In  June,  1609,  a  fleet  "of  seven  good  ships  and  two 
pinnaces  "  set  out  from  Plymouth  for  Virginia,  keep- 
ing till  the  twenty-third  "in  friendly  consort  to- 
gether." But  on  the  twenty-fourth  came  up  "a  most 
dreadfull  Tempest"  and  drove  the  Sea-Venture — 
with  Sir  George  Somers,  admiral,  and  Sir  Thomas 
Gates,  the  newly  appointed  governor  of  Virginia, 
and,  worse  still,  with  the  newly  granted  charter, 
aboard — out  of  its  course  upon  the  rocks  of  the  "dan- 
gerous and  dreaded  Hands  of  the'  Bermuda  .  .  . 
supposed  to  be  given  over  to  Devils  and  wicked 
Spirits."  The  rest  of  the  fleet  made  Virginia  but 
found  things  in  fearful  condition  with  the  little 
settlement  there.  By  the  end  of  the  year  they  began 
to  return  to  England,  vessel  after  vessel,  with  news 
of  the  loss  of  the  Sea-Venture,  and  "laden  with 
nothing  but  bad  reports  and  letters  of  discourage- 
ment." In  May  of  1610,  however,  the  shipwrecked 
party  of  Gates  and  Somers,  having  found  life  after 
all  not  so  intolerable  in  the  gentle  climate  of  Ber- 
muda, made  its  way  in  pinnaces  built  of  cedar  to 
Jamestown.  Gates  found  his  colony  on  its  last  legs 
as  the  result  of  faction,  improvidence,  and  disease, 
and  was  about  to  abandon  the  enterprise,  when 
Lord  De  la  Warr  arrived  from  England  with  pro- 


Letter  from  Virginia  43 

visions  requisite  for  present  needs  and  with  authority 
to  rectify  the  evils  which  had  brought  the  planta- 
tion almost  to  fiasco.  Sailing  for  a  fresh  stock  of 
cattle  on  the  fifteenth  of  July,  Gates  reached  England 
in  September,  1610.  In  May,  1611,  he  made  again 
the  outward  voyage  to  Virginia. 

Not  only  the  Virginia  Company,  all  England,  was 
agog  with  the  adventures  of  the  returning  mariners. 
Their  stories  were  passed  from  mouth  to  mouth. 
Broadsides  and  pamphlets  issued  from  the  press; 
and  letters  from  Virginia,  some  to  the  company  in 
general  and  some  to  interested  individuals,  fur- 
nished the  patentees  with  special  information  some- 
times so  discouraging  that  the  council  did  its  best 
to  hush  it  up. 

From  one  or  more  of  these  sources  any  playwright 
might  have  derived  the  hint  of  a  play  to  be  called 
The  Tempest,  suggestions  for  the  dramatization  of  a 
shipwreck,  incidents  appropriate  to  life  on  a  Devils' 
Island,  its  magical  atmosphere,  and  reflections  to 
be  put  into  the  mouths  of  the  actors.  Shakespeare's 
comedy  was  written  after  the  return  of  Sir  Thomas 
Gates  in  September,  1610;  and,  according  to  evidence 
generally  accepted  by  scholars  and  most  convincing, 
it  was  performed  at  Whitehall,  the  night  of  Novem- 
ber i,  1611.  This  evidence  was  first  published  in 
1842  by  Peter  Cunningham  in  his  Extracts  from  the 
Accounts  of  the  Revels  at  Court  in  the  reigns  of 
Queen  Elizabeth  and  James  I,  from  the  Original 
Office  Books  of  the  Masters  and  Yeomen — "By  the 


44  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

Kings  Players:  Hallomas  nyght  was  presented  att 
Whithall  before  the  Kinges  Majestic  a  play  called 
the  Tempest."  Recent  investigations  (by  Mr.  Ernest 
Law)  of  a  minute,  scientific,  and  technical  kind 
indicate  that  Cunningham's  lists  of  plays  are  gen- 
uine portions  of  the  original  manuscripts.  As  early 
as  1809,  moreover,  the  honest  and  careful  Edmund 
Malone,1  who  had  access  to  the  documents  before 
Cunningham  was  born,  has  said  of  The  Tempest: 
"As  I  know  that  it  had  'a  being  and  a  name'  in  the 
Autumn  of  1611,  the  date  of  the  play  is  fixed  and 
ascertained  with  uncommon  precision,  between  the 
end  of  the  year  1610  and  the  Autumn  of  1611;  and 
it  may  with  great  probability  be  assigned  to  the 
Spring  of  the  latter  year."  A  performance,  of  which 
we  have  record,  in  February,  1613,  may  still  be 
thought  by  some,  though  mistakenly,  to  have  been 
the  first.  But  whether  the  play  first  saw  the  light 
in  1611  or  in  1613  is  not  vital  to  the  point  which  I 
wish  to  emphasize  just  here.  What  concerns  us 
now  is  that  not  from  oral  sources  alone,  nor  from 
printed  declarations,  narratives,  and  broadsides, 
accessible  to  the  public,  did  Shakespeare  draw  the 
more  interesting  Bermuda  and  Virginia  informa- 
tions for  this  play,  but  from  a  letter,  jealously 
guarded  from  the  public,  and  accessible  for  long 
after  1610,  long  after  1613,  only  to  the  inner  circle 
of  the  Virginia  Company.  The  reader  desirous  of 

1  Plays  and  Poems  of  William  Shakespeare  (ed.  1821),  XV, 
423. 


Letter  from  Virginia  45 

making  an  examination  for  himself  of  the  sources 
possibly  pertinent  to  the  subject,  whether  in  manu- 
script or  print,  during  the  years  1609  to  1611,  or 
for  that  matter  to  1613,  will  find  a  list  at  the  end  of 
this  volume.1 

Three  pamphlets  may  be  mentioned  as  summing 
up  any  printed  information  concerning  the  Virginia 
ventures  and  miscarriages  that  may  seem  to  have 
found  its  way  into  The  Tempest.  Of  these  the  first 
was  "A  True  and  Sincere  declaration  of  the  purpose 
and  ends  of  the  Plantation  begun  in  Virginia,"  etc. 
This  was  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall,  December  14, 
1609,  "under  the  hands  of  the  Treasurer  and  other 
officers  of  the  Virginia  Company."  It  is  dated 
London,  1610,  and  is  "the  first  tract  bearing  the 
endorsement:  Set  forth  by  the  authority  of  the 
Governors  and  councillers  established  for  that 
plantation."  It  was  issued  in  order  to  allay  the 
apprehensions  of  the  public  concerning  the  disas- 
ters of  the  year  preceding.2  The  next  was  "A  Dis- 
covery of  the  Barmudas,  Otherwise  called  the  He 
of  Divels,  by  Sir  Thomas  Gates,  Sir  George  Sommers 
and  Captayne  Newport,  with  divers  others."  This 
was  written  by  one  of  the  survivors  of  the  wreck, 
Silvester  Jourdan,  who  had  returned  with  Gates. 
It  is  dated  by  the  author  October  13,  1610,  and  was 
published  in  London  the  same  year.3  But  it  does 

1  Appendix  A. 

2  Reprinted  in  Brown,  Genesis,  I,  337-353. 

8  Reprinted  in  the  1809-12  edition  of  Hakluyt's  Voyages,  and 
Histories  of  Interesting  Discoveries:  A  Supplement,  763-770. 


46  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

not  appear  in  the  Stationers'  Registers  and  was  not 
authorized  by  the  Virginia  Council.  The  third  was 
"A  true  Declaration  of  the  estate  of  the  Colony  of 
Virginia,  with  a  confutacon  of  such  scandalous 
reportes  as  have  tended  to  the  disgrace  of  so  worthy 
an  enterprise."  It  was  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall 
on  November  8,  1610,  and  published  the  same  year 
"by  order  and  direction  of  the  Councell  of  Virginia."  x 
The  materials  for  this  declaration  are  drawn  partly 
from  Sir  Thomas  Gates's  "Report  upon  Oath  of 
Virginia"  as  delivered  on  his  return  to  the  Council, 
but  not  separately  published,  and  principally  from 
information  contained  in  letters  received  from  Vir- 
ginia, not  published  till  after  Shakespeare's  death. 

From  the  True  and  Sincere  Declaration  of  De- 
cember, 1609,  mentioned  above,  and  from  a  Broad- 
side which  serves  as  an  appendix,  an  intending 
dramatist  might,  if  he  had  stopped  his  ears  to  the 
subjects  of  public  conversation,  have  gathered  for 
the  first  time  that  one  of  the  reasons  for  the  failure 
in  Virginia  had  been  "the  misgovernment" — under 
the  presidency  of  Captain  John  Smith — "of  the 
Commanders  by  dissention  and  ambition  among 
themselves"  and  "the  Idlenesse  and  bestiall  slouth 
of  the  common  sort,  who  were  active  in  nothing  but 
adhearing  to  factions  and  parts  even  to  their  owne 
ruine;"  that  to  remedy  these  and  similar  abuses,  an 
expedition  had  been  sent  out  under  the  conduct  of 
Sir  Thomas  Gates  as  "one  able  and  absolute  gov- 

1  Reprinted  by  Peter  Force,  Tracts,  III,  Washington:  1844. 


Letter  from  Virginia  47 

ernor;"  that  "a  terrible  tempest"  had  overtaken 
and  "scattered  the  whole  fleet;"  that  four  of  the 
fleet  had  "met  in  consort"  and  made  their  way  with- 
out "their  Admiral"  to  Virginia;  that  later  three 
other  vessels  had  reached  harbor,  but  that  still  the 
Admiral-ship  was  missing,  with  the  Governor  and 
"all  the  Commissioners  and  principal  persons 
aboard."  He  would  also  learn  that  the  rest  "being 
put  ashore  ...  no  man  would  acknowledge  a 
superior  nor  could  from  this  headlesse  and  unbridled 
multitude  be  anything  expected  but  disorder  and 
riot."  The  council,  however,  "doubts  not  but  by 
the  mercy  of  God,"  the  Governor  "is  safe,  with  the 
Pinnace  which  attended  him,  and  shall  both,  or  are 
by  this  time,  arrived  at  our  colony."  And  from  the 
Broadside  the  enquirer  would  learn  that  the  "most 
vile  and  scandalous  reports,  both  of  the  Country  it- 
selfe,  and  of  the  Cariage  of  the  businesse  there," 
circulated  at  home,  were  attributable  to  "some  few 
of  those  unruly  youths  sent  thither,"  who  "are 
come  for  England  againe,"  and  to  "men  that  seeme 
of  the  better  sort,  being  such  as  lie  at  home,  and  do 
gladly  take  all  occasions  to  cheere  themselves  with 
the  prevention  of  happy  successe  in  any  action  of 
publike  good."  That  "it  is  therefore  resolved  that 
no  ...  unnecessary  person  shall  now  be  accepted, 
but  onely  .  .  .  sufficient,  honest  and  good  artif- 
icers .  .  .  surgeons,  physitions,  and  learned  di- 
vines." 

If   Shakespeare    had    not   talked   with    returned 


48  The  Tempestj  and  an  Unpublished 

voyagers  nor  read  other  and  fuller  accounts  than 
Jourdan's  narrative,  the  next  on  our  list,  we  might 
be  confident  that  he  made  use  of  that  narrative  in 
the  composition  of  The  Tempest.  Jourdan's  Dis- 
covery was  the  first  published  account  of  the  ship- 
wreck of  the  Sea-Venture  and  of  the  ten  months 
spent  in  the  Bermudas.  It  is,  however  (as  given  in 
Hakluyt),  but  a  four-page  quarto;  and  the  sugges- 
tions of  any  possible  value  to  a  Shakespeare  are 
found  on  the  first  page  and  a  half.  From  none  of 
them  should  we  conclude  that  he  was  dependent  upon 
Jourdan;  for  practically  everything  here,  and  much 
beside  pertaining  to  the  subject,  is  definitely  dis- 
coverable in  other  and  better  sources  with  which  the 
poet  was  certainly  acquainted.  In  the  remaining 
pages  of  Jourdan — the  description  of  the  islands, 
the  resumption  of  the  voyage,  and  the  arrival  in 
Virginia — there  is  nothing  uniquely  suggestive  of 
any  feature  of  Shakespeare's  Tempest. 

The  third  pamphlet  mentioned  above,  A  true 
Declaration  of  the  estate  of  the  Colony  of  Virginia, 
covers,  first,  details  of  the  storm,  the  wreck,  the 
Bermudas,  and  the  escape  (the  whole  summed  up 
as  a  "Tragicall-Comsedie"),  and,  secondly,  the 
"testimonies  of  the  causes  of  the  former  evils  and 
Sir  Thomas  Gates  his  Report  upon  Oath  of  Vir- 
ginia." The  earlier  sections  display  half  a  dozen 
similarities  in  expression  and  three  or  four  in  thought 
with  Jourdan  that  recur  in  The  Tempest.  But  they 
also  narrate,  in  common  with  Shakespeare,  one  or 


Letter  from  Virginia  49 

two  striking  particulars  of  the  storm,  of  which 
Jourdan  makes  no  mention.  The  latter  part,  deal- 
ing with  Gates's  testimony  concerning  Virginia,  con- 
tains significant  material  of  which  Shakespeare  be- 
trays knowledge;  but  not  Jourdan. 

As  I  have  said,  the  general  trend  of  what  is  con- 
tained in  these  and  other  pamphlets  may  have 
reached  Shakespeare  by  way  of  conversation.  But 
the  coincidences  existing  between  The  Tempest  and 
the  True  Declaration  alone  have  their  common 
source  in  no  publication  issued  at  the  time.  Their 
common  source  was  the  private  letter  from  Virginia 
to  which  I  have  made  reference  above.  We  find  not 
only  that  much  of  the  True  Declaration  which  does 
not  appear  in  The  Tempest  is  drawn  verbatim  from 
that  letter,  but  also  that  words,  phrases,  figures, 
incidents  of  The  Tempest  which  do  not  appear  in 
the  True  Declaration  or  any  other  printed  account 
must,  if  derived  from  anything  other  than  hearsay 
or  the  dramatist's  imagination,  have  received  their 
suggestion  from  that  letter.  And  that  they  are  not 
all  derived  from  hearsay  or  imagination  appears 
from  the  frequency  of  the  parallelisms. 

This  letter,  the  common  source  of  the  True  Decla- 
ration as  a  whole  and  of  such  portions  of  The  Tempest 
as  deal  with  the  expedition  of  Sir  Thomas  Gates, 
was  written  by  one  of  the  survivors  of  the  wreck, 
William  Strachey,  who  according  to  his  own  state- 
ment officiated  as  secretary  for  Gates  on  his  arrival 
at  Jamestown  and  was  appointed  secretary  and 


50  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

recorder  of  the  council  in  Virginia  by  Lord  De  la 
Warr  when,  in  June,  1610,  he  took  over  the  governor- 
ship from  Gates.  Strachey's  letter,  sent  from  the 
colony  July  15,  1610,  is  addressed  to  an  "excellent 
Lady"  in  England.  It  is  confidential  and,  from 
June  2,  1609  up  to  the  time  of  its  despatch,  describes 
with  vivid  fidelity  and  unvarnished  detail  all  the 
happenings  of  the  intervening  period — discourage- 
ments, mutinies  and  murders,  factions,  misgovern- 
ment,  wanton  sloth  and  waste,  misery  and  penury, 
fraud  and  treason,  death  by  starvation  and  disease 
and  cruel  encounter  with  the  savages.  It  was  not 
made  public  till  1625,  after  the  dissolution  of  the 
Virginia  Company.  Then  for  the  first  time  it  saw 
print  in  a  collection  known  as  Purchas  his  Pilgrimes,1 
under  the  title  "A  true  Repertory  of  the  wracke, 
and  redemption  of  Sir  Thomas  Gates,  Knight;  upon, 
and  from  the  ilands  of  the  Bermudas :  his  comming  to 
Virginia,  and  the  estate  of  that  Colonie  there,  and 
after,  under  the  government  of  the  Lord  La  Warre, 
July  15,  1610,  written  by  William  Strachey,  Es- 
quire." The  chapter  headings  were  supplied,  not 
by  Strachey,  but  by  the  geographer  and  collector, 
Hakluyt,  who  had  obtained  possession  of  the  manu- 
script, or  by  Samuel  Purchas,  who  received  it  from 
Hakluyt  and  prepared  it  for  the  press.  The  first 
chapter  heading,  for  instance,  "A  most  dreadfull 
Tempest  (the  manifold  deaths  whereof  are  here  to 
the  life  described),"  on  the  one  hand  contains  an 
1  Edition  of  1906,  Vol.  XIX,  pp.  5-72. 


Letter  from  Virginia  51 

editorial  compliment  to  the  author's  style;  on  the 
other,  is  inaccurate,  for  there  were  no  deaths  from 
the  tempest.  The  marginal  notes,  critical,  supple- 
mentary, sometimes  bombastically  humorous,  and 
with  references  to  "our  former  tome,"  are  evidently 
by  Purchas;  so  also,  the  insertion  at  the  end  of  the 
letter  of  a  passage  based  upon  A  True  Declaration, 
De  la  Warr's  letters,  and  other  sources.  The  general 
title  also,  "A  True  Repertory,  etc.,"  was  probably 
framed  by  Hakluyt  or  Purchas. 

From  the  materials  of  this  "Letter  to  an  Excellent 
Lady"  in  England,  which  as  I  have  said  remained 
in  manuscript  till  1625,  Strachey  as  secretary  for 
the  Council  in  Virginia  drew  up  a  despatch,  dated 
Jamestown,  July  7,  1610,  "From  the  Lord  De  la 
Warr,  Governor  of  Virginia,  to  the  Patentees  in 
England."  It  also  is  strictly  confidential;  it  does 
not  touch  upon  the  shipwreck,  but  it  sets  forth  the 
unhappy  condition  of  the  colony  with  the  same 
frankness  as  the  still  unsent  Letter  to  an  Excellent 
Lady,  recommends  the  same  remedies,  and  as  em- 
phatically prophesies  success  if  the  remedies  be 
adopted.  The  manuscript  of  this  De  la  Warr  des- 
patch, preserved  in  the  British  Museum,  is  ad- 
dressed and  dated  in  Strachey's  handwriting,  and 
is  signed  by  him  in  conjunction  with  De  la  Warr, 
Gates,  Somers  and  two  of  the  other  three  members 
of  the  Council.  It  remained  in  manuscript  till  I849.1 

1  Harl.  M.  S.  7009,  fol.  58;  publ.  by  R.  H.  Major  in  his  Intro- 
duction to  The  Historic  of  Travaile  into  Virginia  Britannia  by 


52  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

From  the  form  as  printed  by  the  Hakluyt  Society 
we  discover  that  nine  of  the  thirteen  pages  are  an 
almost  verbatim  reproduction  of  the  Letter  to  an 
Excellent  Lady.  Both  that  letter  and  the  despatch 
reached  England  with  Sir  Thomas  Gates  in  Sep- 
tember, 1610. 

The  True  Declaration,  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
Shakespeare  may  have  read,  was  ready  for  publica- 
tion in  little  more  than  a  month  after  Gates's  ar- 
rival. The  compiler — for  so  far  as  the  historical 
matter  goes  the  pamphlet  is  but  a  restatement — 
had  the  two  manuscripts  mentioned  above  before 
him  as  he  wrote.  From  the  De  la  Warr  Despatch 
he  draws  nothing  that  is  not  merely  confirmatory 
of  the  information  contained  in  Strachey's  original 
"Letter;"  but  from  that  letter,  afterwards  pub- 
lished as  A  True  Repertory,  he  draws  much  that 
was  not  repeated  in  the  Despatch.1  It  is,  indeed, 
surmised  by  some  that  the  rough  draft  even  of  the 
True  Declaration  was  prepared  by  Strachey  himself 
and  sent  over  with  Gates.  But  the  compiler,  prob- 
ably Sir  Edwin  Sandys,  must  have  consulted  Jour- 
dan's  printed  Discovery  as  well  for  he  embodies 
from  it  some  five  phrases  not  found  in  his  other 
sources.  These  phrases  do  not  recur  in  Shake- 
speare's Tempest.  In  fact  with  but  one  or  two  excep- 
tions, which  I  shall  presently  mention,  there  is  no 

William  Strachey,  the  First  Secretary  of  the  Colony  (Hakluyt 
Society,  1849). 
1  See  Appendix  B. 


Letter  from  Virginia  53 

similarity  between  Shakespeare  and  Jourdan  that 
is  not  also  common  to  the  True  Declaration  or 
Strachey's  Letter  to  an  Excellent  Lady.  Fully 
twenty  passages  of  the  Declaration  are  drawn  verba- 
tim or  almost  verbatim  from  the  Letter,  and  of  these 
three  or  four  reappear  in  The  Tempest.  But  Shake- 
speare makes  use  as  well  of  minute  and  vivid  details 
narrated  by  Strachey,  of  which  the  Declaration 
makes  no  mention. 

No  other  account  written  or  printed  before  Hal- 
lowmas, 1611  or,  for  that  matter,  February,  1613, 
save  Strachey's  confidential  letter  could  have  fur- 
nished Shakespeare  not  only  with  certain  unique 
suggestions  but  with  the  sequence  of  verbal  details 
regarding  the  wreck,  the  Bermudas,  and  Virginia, 
discoverable  in  The  Tempest. 

II 

The  dramatist,  being  a  landsman  and  more  than 
ordinarily  acquisitive,  might  have  "milked  some 
returned  mariner,"  as  Furness  has  conjectured,  and 
Kipling  contended  with  independent  and  artistic 
ingenuity;  but  why — when  he  was  borrowing  other 
hints  from  Strachey's  letter,  and  with  but  slight 
imaginative  effort  could  turn  them  into  something 
poetically  rich  and  strange?  Several  basic  facts 
and  conceptions  related  not  only  by  Strachey  but 
by  Jourdan  and  the  True  Declaration  might,  in- 
deed, have  been  furnished  by  any  returned  mariner: 


54  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

"the  dreadful  storme  and  hideous;"  the  "wracke" 
upon  the  Bermudas  "rent  with  tempests,  great 
strokes  of  thunder,  lightning  and  raine,"  an  "in- 
chanted  place"  or  "pile  of  rockes,"  counted  of  most 
"no  habitation  for  men,  but  rather  given  over  to 
Devils  and  wicked  Spirits;"  the  miraculous  delivery 
without  loss  of  life;  the  islands  found  "to  be  as 
habitable  and  commodious  as  most  Countries  of 
the  same  climate  and  situation,"  "the  place  itself 
contenting"  and  with  "abundance  by  God's  provi- 
dence of  all  manner  of  good  foode."  General  in- 
formation of  this  kind  might  have  been  derived  from 
hearsay  as  readily  as  from  any  manuscript  or  printed 
account.  So,  also,  with  Shakespeare's  more  detailed 
"leaky"  ship  and  the  wreck  "nigh  shore,"  which 
appear  in  all  three  sources;  the  "mariners  all  under 
hatches  stow'd,"  who  weary  with  "their  suffer'd 
labour"  have  been  "left  asleep,"  and  the  "Mercy 
on  us"  from  the  cabin,  when  the  ship  strikes,  which 
are  suggested  by  Jourdan  and  Strachey,  but  not  by 
the  Declaration;  the  day  turned  into  night,  the 
"amazement"  of  the  sea-captains  and  mariners,  the 
mysterious  and  "fearful  objects  scene  and  heard" 
about  the  island,  mentioned  or  suggested  in  the 
Declaration  and  Strachey,  but  not  in  Jourdan;  the 
"Down  with  the  topmast,"  "We  split,  we  split," 
paralleled  in  the  account  of  Strachey  alone;  the  use 
of  the  term  "hardly  accessable,"  and  the  mention 
of  "fairies"  in  the  Declaration  alone;  the  leave- 
taking  at  sea,  and  the  temperate  air  of  the  island, 


Letter  from  Virginia  55 

implied  by  the  others  but  specifically  mentioned  by 
Jourdan  alone. 

Such  materials  may  have  been  commonplace  of 
current  report.  They  might  have  been  evolved  from 
the  general  reading,  observation  or  imagination  of 
the  most  modestly  equipped  poet.  But  that  does 
not  blind  us  to  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  has  trans- 
muted particulars  of  which  the  minute  and  sole 
suggestion  is  to  be  found  in  Strachey's  letter;  and 
that  he  frequently  transmutes  them  in  the  connec- 
tion indicated  by  Strachey. 

Of  the  tumult  of  the  storm,  Strachey  says:  "fury 
added  to  fury;  .  .  .  our  clamours  dround  in  the 
windes,  and  the  windes  in  thunder.  Prayers  might 
well  be  in  the  hearts  and  lips,  but  drowned  in  the 
outcries  of  the  Officers;"  and  then:  "We  had  now 
purposed  to  have  cut  downe  the  Maine  Mast."  * 
In  the  Tempest,  Shakespeare's  boatswain  orders 
"Down  with  the  topmast,"  and  hears  A  cry  within. 
"A  plague,"  he  shouts,  "upon  this  howling!  They 
are  louder  than  the  weather  or  our  office."  Then 
the  mariners:  "All  lost!  To  prayers!  All  lost!" — 
On  the  same  page  with  "the  outcries,"  Strachey 
speaks  of  "the  glut  of  water;"  Shakespeare  too 
in  the  same  sequence:  "Though  every  drop  of  wa- 
ter ...  gape  at  widest  to  glut  him:"  the  only 
appearance  of  that  word  "glut"  in  Shakespeare. — 
Shakespeare's  Miranda,  some  ten  lines  further  down, 
beseeches  Prospero: 

1  Strachey,  7,  12. 


56  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

If  by  your  art,  my  dearest  father,  you  have 
Put  the  wild  waters  in  this  roar,  allay  them. 
The  sky  it  seems,  would  pour  down  stinking  pitch, 
But  that  the  sea,  mounting  to  the  welkin's  cheek, 
Dashes  the  fire  out  .  .  .  O,  the  cry  did  knock 
Against  my  very  heart! 

Prospero  soothes  her,  "Be  collected;  no  more  amaze- 
ment: tell  your  piteous  heart  There's  no  harm  done." 
Now,  the  True  Declaration  tells  us  that  "the  heavens 
were  obscured,  and  made  an  Egyptian  night  of  three 
daies  perpetuall  horror."  But  it  was  not  from  the 
Declaration,  that  Shakespeare  drew  the  sequence 
of  the  roaring,  the  hellish  pitch,  the  extinguishment 
of  the  fires  of  heaven,  and  Miranda's  sensibility  to 
the  cry  of  the  sufferers,  her  amazement;  it  was  from 
the  page  in  Strachey's  letter  already  used  and  that 
preceding  (6,  7).  "A  dreadful  storm,"  says  Strachey, 
"began  to  blow  .  .  .  which  swelling,  and  roaring 
as  it  were  by  fits  ...  at  length  did  beat  all  light 
from  heaven;  which  like  an  hell  of  darknesse  turned 
blacke  upon  us.  ...  The  senses  (taken  up  with 
amazement)  the  eares  lay  so  sensible  to  the  terrible 
cries,  and  murmurs  of  the  windes,  and  distraction 
of  our  Company,  as  who  was  most  armed,  and  best 
prepared,  was  not  a  little  shaken." — Descriptions 
of  St.  Elmo's  fire  Shakespeare  might  have  found  in 
Tonson  of  1555  or  in  a  half-dozen  other  sources, 
but  in  none  just  that  chrysalis  of  the  ethereal  crea- 
ture "flaming  amazement"  who  glorifies  this  second 
scene  of  The  Tempest.  The  hint  is  in  the  "appari- 


Letter  from  Virginia  57 

tion,"  as  poetically  recounted  by  Strachey  four 
pages  further  down — and  by  him  alone  of  all  his- 
torians of  the  Bermuda  tempest — "The  heavens 
look'd  so  blacke  upon  us,  that  it  was  not  possible 
the  elevation  of  the  Pole  might  be  observed:  nor  a 
Starre  by  night,  not  Sunne  beame  by  day  was  to 
be  scene.  Onely  upon  the  thursday  night  Sir  George 
Summers  being  upon  the  watch  had  an  apparition 
of  a  little  round  light,  like  a  faint  Starre,  trembling, 
and  streaming  along  with  a  sparkeling  blaze,  halfe  the 
height  upon  the  Maine  Mast,  and  shooting  some- 
times from  Shroud  to  Shroud,  tempting  to  settle 
as  it  were  upon  any  of  the  foure  Shrouds;  and  for 
three  or  foure  houres  together,  or  rather  more,  halfe 
the  night  it  kept  with  us;  running  sometimes  along 
the  Maine-yard  to  the  very  end  and  then  returning." 
And  how  Sir  George  Somers  and  others  observed 
it  "with  much  wonder  and  carefulnesse;  but  upon  a 
sodaine  towards  the  morning  watch,  they  lost  the 
sight  of  it,  and  knew  not  what  way  it  made.  .  .  .  The 
superstitious  Sea-men  make  many  constructions  of 
this  Sea-fire,  .  .  .  the  same  (it  may  be)  which  the 
Grecians  call  Castor  and  Pollux,  of  which,  if  one 
onely  appeared  without  the  other,  they  took  it  for  an 
evil  signe  of  great  tempest.  The  Italians  call  it  (a 
sacred  Body)  Corpo  sancto:  The  Spaniards  call  it 
Saint  Elmo.  .  .  .  Could  it  have  served  us  now 
miraculously  to  have  taken  our  height  by,  it  might 
have  strucken  amazement,  and  a  reverence  in  our 
devotions  according  to  the  due  of  a  miracle.  But 


58  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

it  did  not  light  us  any  whit  the  more  to  our  knowne 
way."  *  This  "sacred  Body,"  "an  evill  signe  of 
great  tempest,"  is  the  protoplast  of  Shakespeare's 
delicate  Ariel  of  Argier.  Strachey,  by  the  way,  has 
mentioned  the  storms  known  to  him  off  Algeere  a 
moment  or  two  earlier.  This  is  the  spirit  of  whom 
Prospero  demands,  "Hast  thou  .  .  .  performed  to 
point  the  tempest  that  I  bade  thee?"  "To  every 
article,"  replies  Ariel: 

I  boarded  the  king's  ship;  now  on  the  beak, 
Now  in  the  waist,  the  deck,  in  every  cabin, 
I  flamed  amazement.    Sometime  I'd  divide 
And  burn  in  many  places.    On  the  topmast, 
The  yards  and  bowsprit,  would  I  flame  distinctly, 
Then  meet  and  join.  .  .  . 

The  pages  of  Strachey  are  turbulent  hereabout 
with  thunder,  lightning  and  rain,  with  "windes  and 
Seas  as  mad  as  fury  and  rage  could  make  them," 
with  the  huge  Sea  that  "brake  upon  poop  and  quar- 
ter," the  terror  and  danger  that  "ranne  through  the 
whole  Ship  with  much  fright  and  amazement, 
startled  and  turned  the  bloud,  and  took  down  the 
braves  of  the  most  hardy  Marriner  of  them  all." 
Indeed,  of  himself,  he  says:  "The  Lord  knoweth, 
I  had  as  little  hope  as  desire  of  life  in  the  storme, 
and  in  this  it  went  beyond  my  will;  because  beyond 
my  reason,  why  we  should  labour  to  preserve  life. 
Yet  we  did,  .  .  .  the  most  despairefull  things 

Strachey,  II,  12. 


Letter  from  Virginia  59 

amongst  men  being  matters  of  no  moment  with 
Him  who  is  the  .  .  .  essence  of  all  mercy."  Of 
these  conditions  there  may  be  some  reminiscence 
in  what  follows  of  Shakespeare's  account:  "The 
fire  and  cracks,"  says  Ariel  — 

The  fire  and  cracks 

Of  sulphurous  roaring  the  most  mighty  Neptune 
Seem  to  besiege,  and  make  his  bold  waves  tremble, 
Yea,  his  dread  trident  shake. 

"My  brave  spirit,"  exclaims  Prospero  — 

Who  was  so  firm,  so  constant,  that  this  coil 
Would  not  infect  his  reason? 
Ariel  Not  a  soul 

But  felt  a  fever  of  the  mad,  and  play'd 
Some  tricks  of  desperation. 

After  the  wreck  upon  Prospero's  isle  —  though 
that  be  land  of  faerie  in  Shakespearian  seas  far  from 
"the  still-vex'd  Bermoothes"  whence  Ariel  fetched 
his  dew  —  the  identity  of  particulars  between  The 
Tempest  and  Strachey's  letter  persists.  Not  in 
Jourdan's  narrative,  or  any  other,  of  Gates's  expedi- 
tion do  we  find  basis  for  parallels,  verbal  or  inci- 
dental, such  as  the  following.  Any  one  might  be 
fortuitous;  but  taken  in  the  lump,  they  are  impres- 
sive: Strachey's  search  for  "running  Springs  of  fresh 
water,"  *  —  and  Caliban's  "fresh  springs"  and  "brine 


quotations  from  Strachey  in  this  paragraph  will  be 
found  respectively  and  in  order  on  pp.  20,  18,  22,  23,  24,  16,  7, 
12,  34-35- 


60  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

pits;"  Strachey's  "Berries,  whereof  our  men  seeth- 
ing .  .  .  made  a  kind  of  pleasant  drink," — and 
Caliban's  "water  with  berries  in  it;"  Strachey's 
"Owles  and  Bats  in  great  store"  and  a  "kinde  of 
webbe-footed  Fowle,  .  .  .  which  Birds  with  a  light 
bough  in  a  darke  night  (as  in  our  Lowbelling)  were 
caught  .  .  .  which  for  their  blindenesse  were  called 
the  Sea  Owle," — and  Sebastian's  suggestion  that 
they  "go  a  bat-fowling  (or  lowbelling);"  Strachey's 
further  description  of  these  birds  "of  the  bignesse 
of  an  English  greene  Plover,  or  Sea-Meawe  [or  sea- 
mell],"  that  "breed  in  those  Hands  which  are  high, 
and  far  alone"  and  are  caught  on  "the  Rockes  or 
Sands," — and  Caliban's  "I'll  get  thee  young  sea- 
mells  [misprinted  in  the  folio,  "scamels"]  from  the 
rock;"  Strachey's  description  of  the  "Tortoise  .  .  . 
such  a  kind  of  meat,  as  a  man  can  neither  absolutely 
call  Fish  nor  Flesh,  keeping  most  what  in  the  water, 
and  feeding  upon  Sea-grasse  like  a  Heifer," — and 
Shakespeare's  invention  of  Caliban,  who  is  for  Pros- 
pero  "tortoise,"  for  Trinculo,  "Man  or  a  fish?  A 
strange  fish!",  for  Stephano  "moon-calf"  on  all 
occasions. 

If  the  reader  is  hospitable  to  further  coincidences, 
let  him  note  the  following:  Strachey's  "mightiest 
blast  of  lightning  and  most  terrible  rap  of  thunder 
that  ever  astonied  mortal  man  .  .  .  and  many 
scattering  showers  of  rain  which  would  passe  swiftly 
over,  and  yet  fall  with  such  force  and  darknesse  for 
the  time  as  if  it  would  never  bee  cleere  againe," 


Letter  from  Virginia  61 

and  his  earlier,  "It  could  not  be  said  to  raine,  the 
waters  like  whole  Rivers  did  flood  in  the  ayre." 
Compare  Trinculo's  discomfort  in  the  frequency 
and  plethora  of  the  storms:  "Another  storm  brew- 
ing; yond  same  black  cloud  .  .  .  looks  like  a  foul 
bombard  that  would  shed  his  liquor.  If  it  should 
thunder  as  it  did  before,  I  know  not  where  to  hide 
my  head:  yond  same  cloud  cannot  choose  but  fall 
by  pailfuls.  [Thunder]  Alas,  the  storm  is  come 
again!" — Earlier,  Strachey  has  told  us,  "We  threw 
overboard  much  luggage  and  staved  many  a  Butte 
of  Beere,  Hogsheads  of  Oyle,  Syder,  Wine  .  .  .  and 
heaved  away  all  our  Ordinance  on  the  starboord 
side."  Compare  Shakespeare's  Stephano:  "I  es- 
caped with  a  butt  of  sack,  which  the  sailors  heaved 
overboard,"  and  (to  Caliban),  "Bear  this  away 
where  my  hogshead  of  wine  is." — Strachey's  mal- 
contents in  Bermuda  who  arranged  to  meet  our 
men  "at  a  pond  of  fresh  water;"  then  "like  Out- 
lawes  betooke  them  to  the  wild  woods,"  "desiring 
for  ever  to  inhabite  heere";  then  audaciously  de- 
manded of  Sir  Thomas  Gates  that  he  "furnish  each 
of  them  with  two  Sutes  of  Apparell."  Compare 
Shakespeare's  Stephano  and  his  viceroys  conspiring 
"to  make  this  island"  their  "own  for  ever,"  who 
battle  their  way  through  woods  of  toothed  briars 
and  thorns  and  the  pond  by  no  means  fresh  to  settle 
accounts  with  the  master  of  the  isle;  arrive  at  his 
cell;  encounter  the  suits  of  "glistering  apparel" 
which  he  has  hung  out,  and  stay  their  "bloody 


62  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

thoughts"  to  make  themselves  first  masters  thereof. 
This  "apparel"  motive  is  neither  unique  in  fiction 
nor  highly  inventive,  but  it  is  of  a  piece  with  the 
fact  as  recorded  in  the  letter  of  which  Shakespeare 
has  already  made  free  use.  Otherwise  it  would  not 
be  worth  mentioning. 

The  name  Caliban,  as  everybody  has  heard,  ap- 
pears to  be  shaped  from  Caniba,  or  Calibana,  the 
Italian  for  the  land  of  the  Caribbean  Indians,  sup- 
posed to  be  eaters  of  men.  The  name  Gonzalo, 
also  unique  in  English  dramatic  literature  of  the 
time,  is  common  in  records  of  travel.  In  Hakluyt's 
Navigations,  which  undoubtedly  Shakespeare  had 
perused,  there  are  Gonzaluses  and  Ferdinandos  and 
Stephanos  and  other  names  used  in  The  Tempest. 
Such  names,  as  well  as  Caliban's  "Setebos,"  are 
found  also  in  Eden's  Historic  of  Travayle,  1577. 
"Prospero",  "Ferdinando",  "Alonzo",  and  "Anto- 
nio" occur  in  Thomas's  Historye  of  Italye,  1561; 
and  "Prospero"  and  "Stephano",  among  the 
dramatis  persona  of  the  1601  quarto  of  Every  Man 
in  his  Humor.  But  the  names  Gonzalo,  and  Ferdi- 
nand, leap  to  the  eye  in  Strachey's  account  of  the 
shipwreck:  "Gonzalus  Ferdinandus  Oviedus"  *  is 
Strachey's  authority  for  the  reputation  of  the  "Hand 
Bermudas"  and  its  Devils,  and  he  takes  pains  to 
tell  her  Ladyship,  his  correspondent,  so.  Gonzalo 
and  Ferdinando  were  already  named  for  Shakespeare 
before  he  set  them  ashore. 

1  Strachey,  14. 


Letter  from  Virginia  63 

Touching  Stephano,  I  blush  to  say  that  as  it  is 
he  who  on  Prospero's  island  comes  in  singing: 

I  shall  no  more  to  sea,  to  sea, 
Here  shall  I  die  ashore, — 

as  it  is  he  to  whom,  ringleader  of  the  baser  sort, 
occurs  the  thought:  "the  King  and  all  our  company 
else  being  drowned,  we  will  inherit  here" — as  it  is 
Stephano  who  would  be  "king  o'  the  isle"  with 
Trinculo  and  Caliban  as  viceroys,  and  who  warns 
Trinculo:  "if  you  prove  a  mutineer,  the  next  tree;" 
so  in  Bermuda  it  was  a  Stephen  who  headed  the 
first  dangerous  mutiny.  Strachey  has  already  told 
how  "the  major  part  of  the  common  sort"  were 
willing  "to  settle  a  foundation  of  ever  inhabiting 
there"  how  secret  discontents  beginning  "in  the 
Seamen  .  .  .  had  like  to  have  been  the  parents  of 
bloudy  issues  and  mischiefes,"  how  the  seamen 
joined  landsmen  to  them,  and  how  this  first  con- 
spiracy was  crushed.  Now  he  proceeds:  "Yet 
could  not  this  be  any  warning  to  others,  who  more 
subtilly  began  to  shake  the  foundation  of  our  quiet 
safety,  and  therein  did  one  Stephen  Hopkins  com- 
mence the  first  act  or  overture:  A  fellow  who  had 
much  knowledge  in  the  Scriptures,  and  could  reason 
well  therein,  whom  our  minister  therefore  chose  to 
be  his  Clarke,  to  reade  the  Psalmes,  and  Chapters 
upon  Sondayes."  This  same  Stephen  in  January 
"brake"  with  two  others  "and  alleaged  substantiall 
arguments,  both  civill  and  divine  (the  Scripture 


64  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

falsly  quoted)  that  it  was  no  breach  of  honesty,  con- 
science, nor  Religion,  to  decline  from  the  obedience  of 
the  Governour,  or  refuse  to  goe  any  further,  led  by  his 
authoritie  (except  it  so  pleased  themselves)  since 
the  authoritie  ceased  when  the  wracke  was  committed, 
and  with  it  they  were  all  freed  from  the  government  of 
any  man;  and  for  a  matter  of  Conscience"  they  were 
"bound  each  one  to  provide  for  himself,"  and  "to 
stay  in  this  place,"  there  being  "abundance  of  God's 
providence  of  all  manner  of  goode  foode,"  etc.  This 
Stephano  of  real  life,  brought  forth  in  manacles  and 
faced  by  the  two  accusers  with  whom  he  had  con- 
versed, made  "answere,  which  was  onely  full  of 
sorrow  and  teares,  pleading  simplicity  and  deniall. 
But  hee  being  .  .  .  generally  held  worthy  to  satis- 
fie  the  punishment  of  his  offence,  with  the  sacrifice 
of  his  life,  our  Governour  passed  the  sentence  of  a 
Martiall  Court  upon  him,  such  as  belongs  to  Mutinie 
and  Rebellion.  But  so  penitent  hee  was,  and  made 
so  much  moane,  alleadging  the  ruine  of  his  wife  and 
children  in  this  his  trespasse,  as  it  wrought  in  the 
hearts  of  all  the  better  sort  of  the  company,  who 
therefore  [Captain  Newport  and  Strachey  among 
the  rest]  went  unto  our  Governor  .  .  .  and  never 
left  him  untill  we  had  got  his  pardon."  l  Whether 
this  puritan  proponent  of  freedom  from  authority 
and  of  "inheriting  here"  was  the  contributory  evo- 
cation of  Shakespeare's  "drunken  butler,  Stephano," 
I  dare  not  say.  Shakespeare  had  an  ever  ready 
1  Strachey,  28,  30-31. 


Letter  from  Virginia  65 

ridicule  for  the  anarch,  and  a  tolerant  smile  for  the 
extravagances  of  the  Puritan.  Stephen  was  both 
anarch  and  sectary;  Stephano  but  the  former,  and 
by  no  means  knowledged  in  the  scriptures.  It  may 
engage  descendants  of  the  Mayflower  to  know  that 
having  returned  to  England,  the  Brownist  Hopkins, 
with  his  second  wife  and  two  children  of  his  first, 
joined  himself  in  1620  to  the  Bradford  and  Brewster 
expedition  and,  in  more  congenial  company  this 
time,  settled  permanently  in  the  Plymouth  Colony. 
As  one  of  the  twenty-two  passengers  on  that  im- 
memorial craft  from  whom  descent  in  America  has 
been  proved,  he  has,  of  his  progeny  alone,  com- 
memorators  today  more  numerous  by  far  than  were 
the  colonists  whose  hearts  he  softened  that  day 
toward  the  end  of  January,  1610.  This,  however, 
is  desipere  in  [or  ex]  loco.  Whether  Shakespeare 
borrowed  names  from  Strachey  or  not,  to  make  an 
argument  out  of  it  would  be  precious  and  inconse- 
quential. We  have  already  sufficient  evidence  that 
he  knew  his  Strachey  from  first  page  to  last. 

If  the  coincidences  between  The  Tempest  and 
Strachey's  letter  were  confined  to  details  of  romantic 
adventure  Shakespeare's  interest  would  not  appear 
to  be  out  of  the  common.  His  acquaintance  with 
the  document  would  be  proved,  but  we  should  have 
no  indication  of  his  political  opinion.  Does  he,  like 
the  hungry  generation  of  contemporary  dramatists 
seize  upon  the  plum-duff  and  forget  the  rum  and 
blue  fire?  The  sequence  may  provide  the  answer. 


66  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

No  sooner  has  Strachey  recounted  the  safe  arrival 
of  Sir  Thomas  Gates  in  Virginia  than  he  proceeds 
to  describe  the  disordered  state  of  the  Colony  1 — 
"  not  excusing  likewise  the  form  of  government  of 
some  errour,  which  was  not  powerfull  among  so 
headie  a  multitude — the  miserable  effects  in  sloath, 
riot  and  vanity;  .  .  .  continual  wasting,  no  hus- 
bandry, the  old  store  still  spent  on,  .  .  .  And  with 
this  Idlenesse  .  .  .  the  headlesse  multitude  (some 
neither  of  qualitie  nor  Religion)  not  imployed  to 
the  end  for  which  they  were  sent  hither;  no,  not 
compelled  (since  in  themselves  unwilling)  to  sowe 
corne  for  their  owne  bellies,  nor  to  put  a  Roote, 
Herbe,  etc.  for  their  owne  particular  good  in  their 
Gardens  or  Elsewhere."  .  .  .  And  this  in  "one 
of  the  goodliest  Countries  under  the  sunne";  for 
"no  Country  yeeldeth  goodlier  Corne,  nor  more 
manifold  increase  .  .  .  thousands  of  goodly  Vines 
in  every  hedge  and  Boske,  running  along  the  ground 
which  yeelde  a  plentiful  Grape  in  their  kinde," 
abundance  of  all  things  richly  bestowed  by  nature, 
if  but  manured  and  dressed  by  the  hand  of  hus- 
bandry, all  "suffered  to  lie  sicke  and  languishe. 
Only  let  me  truely  acknowledge,  they  are  not  an 
hundred  or  two  of  deboist  hands  ...  ill  provided 
for  before  they  came,  and  worse  to  be  governed  when 
they  are  here  .  .  .  that  must  be  the  carpenters  and 
workemen  in  this  so  glorious  a  building."  With 
the  usual  result  in  abuse  where  no  provision  for 
Strachey,  46-51. 


Letter  from  Virginia  67 

legitimate  profit  had  been  made,  there  was  no  sys- 
tematized truck  with  the  Indians.  "And  for  this 
misgovernment,  chiefly  our  Colony  is  much  bound 
to  the  Mariners"  who  dishonestly  forestall  the 
market  with  them  by  night;  and  to  the  usury  of  the 
Masters,  and  the  frauds  of  the  Pursers.  The  natural 
outcome  of  communism  and  divided  rule,  to  be 
cured  only  by  "the  better  authoritie  and  govern- 
ment now  changed  into  an  absolute  command." 

Something  of  this  "tempest  of  dissention"  had 
already  been  conceded  in  the  True  and  Sincere 
Declaration  of  December,  1609.  And  still  more  had 
been  embodied  from  Strachey's  Letter  to  an  Excel- 
lent Lady  in  the  True  Declaration,  which  as  we 
know  had  been  published  in  November,  1610: — 
the  "Every  man  overvaluing  his  owne  worth,  would 
be  a  Commander;  every  man  underprizing  another's 
value  denied  to  be  commanded;"  the  "Every  man 
sharked  for  his  owne  booty,  but  was  altogether 
carelesse  of  succeeding  penurie;"  the  "idlenesse," 
the  "treasons,"  the  "want  of  government."  But 
the  account  of  natural  abundance,  the  corn  and 
vines  and  chance  for  tilth  and  profit,  and  of  the 
wasteful  sloth,  the  "headless  multitude"  and  "privie 
faction"  of  Virginia,  in  the  unpublished  letter  is 
more  minute  and  vivid;  and  if  Shakespeare  has  so 
far  been  drawing  upon  the  materials  of  the  letter, 
it  is  but  natural  that  he  should  continue  to  do  so. 
It  is  also  natural  that  as  his  enchanted  island  is  a 
composite  of  Bermuda  and  of  islands  "by  wandering 


68  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

sailors  never  seen,"  so  also  his  animadversions  upon 
colonial  communism  should  be  a  transmutation — 
neither  of  Bermudan  fact  nor  of  Virginian  alone,  but 
of  both. 

The  shafts  of  Strachey's  reality,  Shakespeare 
points  with  irony.  No  sooner  has  the  poet  brought 
to  shore  the  shipwrecked  king  and  court  of  Naples 
than,  out  of  a  clear  sky,  his  wise  and  loyal  Gonzalo 
with  a  sort  of  "merry  fooling"  animadverts  upon 
the  Virginia  plantation,  and  propounds  Utopia. 
"Had  I  plantation  of  this  isle,  my  lord.  .  .  .  And 
were  the  king  on't,  what  would  I  do?"  Then, 
adapting  Montaigne's  embellishment  of  the  golden 
age: 

I'  the  commonwealth  I  would  by  contraries 
Execute  all  things:  for  no  kind  of  profit 
Would  I  admit;  no  name  of  magistrate; 
Letters  should  not  be  known;  riches,  poverty, 
And  use  of  service,  none;  contract,  succession, 
Bourn,  bound  of  land,  tilth,  vineyard,  none; 
No  use  of  metal,  corn,  or  wine,  or  oil; 
No  occupation;  all  men  idle,  all, 
And  women  too,  but  innocent  and  pure; 
No  sovereignty. 

Upon  which  the  rascally  Sebastian,  "Yet  he  would 
be  king  on't;"  and  Antonio,  "The  latter  end  of  his 
commonwealth  forgets  the  beginning."  But  Gon- 
zalo, still  playing  with  Montaigne  and  communism — 
may  we  not  say  in  the  light  of  the  Virginian  fiasco? — 


Letter  from  Virginia  69 

All  things  in  common  Nature  should  produce 
Without  sweat  or  endeavour;  treason,  felony, 
Sword,  pike,  knife,  gun,  or  need  of  any  engine 
Would  I  not  have;  but  Nature  should  bring  forth, 
Of  its  own  kind,  all  foison, — all  abundance, 
To  feed  my  innocent  people. 

These,  "all  idle"  and  "knaves,"  Gonzalo  "would 
with  such  perfection  govern,  Sir,  T'  excel  the  golden 
age."  So  the  subacid  Gonzalo,  of  the  kingless  com- 
monwealth of  which  he  should  be  king.  So  with 
exemplification  by  contraries,  Shakespeare  in  the 
sequel  of  his  play — the  speedy  treasons  of  Sebastian 
and  Antonio  "where  no  name  of  magistrate  is 
known,"  the  inheriting  ambitions  and  "bloody 
thoughts  "'of  the  "deboshed"  and  idle  poor.  And 
so,  Strachey  and  Sandys  drawing  upon  him,  of  the 
plantation  where  "every  man  would  be  a  Com- 
mander." 

The  improvidence  resulting  from  the  original 
common  stock  system  in  the  plantation  of  Virginia, 
and  the  anarchy  where  none  was  "sole  and  ab- 
solute governor,"  were  precisely  the  curses  which, 
when  Shakespeare's  whimsical  "plantation  of  this 
isle"  was  put  upon  the  stage,  the  friends  of  Shake- 
speare in  the  Virginia  Council  were  striving  to  lift 
from  the  shoulders  of  their  colony. 


70  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

III 

In  this  exposition  of  the  relation  of  The  Tempest 
to  its  colonial  origin,  the  purpose  has  been  not  so 
much  to  show  that  Shakespeare  was  alive  to  a  matter 
of  contemporary  interest  and  had  his  definite  opinion 
concerning  the  political  questions  involved — so  had 
every  alert  Englishman  of  the  day, — as  to  show 
that,  aside  from  hearsay,  his  main  source  of  informa- 
tion was  a  letter  so  revelatory,  so  confidential,  that 
it  could  not  be,  and  was  not,  published  at  the  time. 
That  he  should  have  had  access  to  a  manuscript 
privately  circulated  among  members  of  the  Vir- 
ginia Council,  Southampton,  Sandys,  and  the  rest, 
is  of  significance,  more  vital  than  has  hitherto  been 
recognized,  in  our  understanding  of  Shakespeare's 
intimacy  with  the  leaders  of  the  Virginia  enterprise; 
and  that  it  has  not  been  generally  recognized  is  due 
largely  to  the  fact  that  until  recently  historians  and 
editors,  not  considering  that  intimacy  and  its  possi- 
bilities, have  loosely  conveyed  the  idea  that  the 
poet's  source  of  information  was  published  between 
1610  and  1612.  This  they  have  accomplished  by 
manifold  devices:  by  coupling  it,  as  a  narrative  ac- 
cessible to  all,  with  tracts  or  pamphlets  actually 
published  during  that  period;  or  by  citing  it  with 
such  tracts  under  the  title,  A  True  Repertory,  which 
was  not  coined  by  Strachey,  nor  known  to  anyone 
till  the  publication  of  the  letter  by  Purchas  in  1625; 
or  by  speaking  of  it  under  that  title  as  "reprinted 


Letter  from  Virginia  71 

in  1625,"  thus  implying  an  earlier  publication;  or 
by  christening  it  "a  publication,  possibly  printed 
in  1612,"  or,  with  definite  and  unpardonable  inex- 
actitude, "a  tract  which  appeared  in  1610-12;"  or, 
still  worse,  by  gratuitously  apprising  us  that  "this 
pamphlet  was  written  in  1610,  and  printed  in  London 
before  the  close  of  the  same  year" — a  statement 
calculated  to  deceive  the  very  elect.  Of  recent 
scholars,  I  am  glad  to  note  that  Professor  Greene 
in  his  edition  of  The  Tempest  says  that  Shakespeare 
"may  have  seen  the  original  manuscript,  perhaps 
while  it  was  in  the  keeping  of  Hakluyt,  who  trans- 
mitted it  to  Purchas;"  l  and  that  Mr.  Morton  Luce 
holds  that  "he  must  surely  have  seen  it."  z  What 
some  have  conjectured,  I  hope  has  been  proved 
here  once  and  for  all. 

It  may  be  well  to  recapitulate  the  history  of 
Strachey's  letter,  so  far  as  known.  It  was,  as  we 
have  seen,  addressed  to  an  Excellent  Lady  in  Eng- 
land. It  was  brought  to  a  close  at  Algernoone  Fort, 
Point  Comfort,  July  15,  1610.  It  was  forwarded 
the  same  day  by  Sir  Thomas  Gates,  who  arrived  in 
England  in  September  of  that  year.  Who  the  lady 
was  may  possibly  yet  be  determined;  but  since  we 
are  not  here  indulging  in  conjecture,  I  have  relegated 
my  own  guess  to  a  less  conspicuous  corner.3  At  the 

1 H.  E.  Greene,  The  Tempest,  p.  viii,  in  The  Tudor  Shake- 
speare, 1913. 

2  Morton  Luce,  The  Tempest,  pp.  149-161,  in  The  Arden 
Shakespeare. 

*  See  below,  Appendix  C. 


72  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

time  of  Hakluyt's  death,  1616,  the  manuscript  passed 
with  other  of  his  papers  into  the  hands  of  Samuel 
Purchas,  by  whom  it  was  included,  under  the  title, 
A  True  Repertory,  etc.,  in  Purchas  his  Pilgrimes, 
issued  from  the  press  in  1625.  Neither  the  British 
Museum  nor  the  Bodleian  Library  owns,  or  knows, 
of  any  edition  printed  before  that  date.  No  other 
library,  European  or  American,  has  ever  announced 
possession  of  an  earlier  edition  or  knowledge  of  its 
existence.  Nor  has  any  book  collector.  No  record 
of  printed  books — the  Register  of  the  Stationers' 
Company,  or  subsidiary  record — has  ever  listed  a 
printed  copy  other  than  that  of  Purchas.  No  scholar, 
however  nodding,  has  dreamed,  or  dreamed  of  tell- 
ing us,  that  he  has  seen  a  copy  printed  before  1625. 
As  to  the  original  manuscript,  the  Keeper  of  manu- 
scripts in  the  British  Museum  writes,  in  answer  to 
my  query,  "I  have  made  a  complete  search  under 
Strachey's  name,  and  under  Bermudas,  Somers' 
Islands,  Summer  Islands,  without  success.  We  have 
nothing  of  William  Strachey  except  the  travels 
through  Virginia  in  Sloane  MS.  1622."  My  corre- 
spondent, Miss  Parker,  at  the  Bodleian  Library  re- 
ports, "I  have  made  an  exhaustive  search  for  MS. 
of  A  True  Repertory  of  the  Wracke,  etc.,  but  have 
met  with  no  success.  The  Bodleian  certainly  con- 
tains no  such  MS.  Everything  seems  to  point  to 
the  fact  that  the  'Repertory'  was  not  printed  until 
Purchas  got  hold  of  it;  and  it  seems  highly  probable 
that  the  Ms.  has  perished." 


Letter  from  Virginia  73 

Considering  all  the  premises  it  is,  moreover, 
"practically  inconceivable  that  the  original  manu- 
script of  Strachey's  narrative,  or  an  early  copy  of 
it,  can  be  on  record  as  existing  without  having  been 
promptly  published  by  some  student  of  Shakespeare." 
So  writes  my  friend,  Mr.  A.  W.  Pollard,  Assistant 
Keeper  of  printed  books  in  the  British  Museum,  in 
an  informal  response  to  my  inquiries.  He  continues : 
"For  the  same  reason  it  is  inconceivable  that  a 
printed  edition  earlier  than  that  of  1625  can  be  on 
record.  Furthermore  (and  this  is  less  obvious)  it  is 
practically  inconceivable  that  the  Reportory  should 
have  got  into  print  in  1610-12,  and  all  copies  of  it 
disappeared."  This  is  true  for  its  contents  would 
have  created  a  tremendous  sensation  and  would 
have  been  exploited  by  the  Court  party  as  damaging 
to  the  control  of  the  Liberals  in  the  Virginia  enter- 
prise. "It  would  have  ruined  Strachey's  career," 
proceeds  Mr.  Pollard,  "to  have  published  it  at  such 
a  time;  the  Wardens  of  the  Stationers'  Company 
would  never  have  passed  it,  and  it  could  only  have 
been  printed  secretly,  and  about  this  time  to  the 
best  of  my  belief  no  secret  printing  was  going  on." 
This  is  significant.  So  far  as  the  present  writer 
knows,  the  only  publication  dealing  with  political 
affairs  in  Virginia  that  appeared  during  these  years, 
without  license  of  the  Stationers'  Company  (which 
itself,  was  a  member  of  the  Virginia  Company), 
got  itself  into  print — not  secretly  but  by  indirec- 
tion— under  the  patronage  of  clergymen  who  were 


74  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

disaffected  with  the  policy  of  the  Virginia  Council. 
That  publication  is  a  eulogy  of  the  deposed  and  dis- 
contented Captain  John  Smith:  an  adverse  criticism 
of  the  management  of  the  enterprise  under  the 
Patriot  party  in  the  Council.  It  is  entitled  The 
Proceedings  of  the  English  Colonie  in  Virginia  .  .  . 
1606-1612,  was  compiled  probably  by  the  Reverend 
William  Symonds,  and  was  printed  in  the  latter 
year,  not  in  London  but  at  Oxford,  by  one  Joseph 
Barnes.  The  Register  of  the  Stationers'  Hall  shows, 
continues  Mr.  Pollard,  that  during  these  critical 
years,  "books  about  the  Virginia  Company's  affairs 
were  entered  'under  the  hands'  of  very  influential 
persons,  as  a  guarantee  of  their  being  harmless. 
The  company  was  getting  up  two  lotteries,  and 
doing  its  best  to  repair  the  fiasco  of  1609-10.  Now, 
Strachey's  account  is  written  of  course  as  by  a  well- 
wisher  of  the  company  to  another  well-wisher,  but 
to  my  thinking  it  is  much  too  frank  to  have  been 
allowed  in  print  while  a  very  influential  company 
was  trying  to  raise  more  men  and  more  money. 
Hence  its  circulation  in  manuscript,  in  which  form 
Shakespeare  may,  of  course,  have  read  it,  if  he 
didn't,  as  Kipling  plausibly  contends,  get  his  knowl- 
edge from  a  drunken  seaman." 

Mr.  Kipling's  contention,  as  we  have  observed, 
cannot  dispose  of  the  numerous  and  frequently 
unique  resemblances  between  The  Tempest  and 
Strachey's  narrative.  And  the  inconceivability  of 
that  narrative  having  found  its  way  into  print  before 


Letter  from  Virginia  75 

The  Tempest  was  written  corroborates  the  conclu- 
sion from  historical  evidence  at  which  I  had  already 
arrived.  The  letter  was  not  printed  so  long  as  the 
Virginia  Company  was  in  the  control  of  the  Patriot 
party.  It  was  printed  one  year  after  the  Patriots 
were  suppressed  and  the  Virginia  charters  annulled; 
and  then,  1625,  by  an  editor  recognized  as  the  of- 
ficial historian  of  James  and  the  tyrannical  party 
at  Court. 

Though  Strachey  returned  to  England  late  in 
October,  or  early  in  November,  1611,  and  was  lodg- 
ing the  next  year  in  Blackfriars,  information  derived 
personally  from  him  could  not  permeate  a  play  acted 
on  the  first  of  November,  1611.  And  even  if  one 
cling  to  the  indefensible  supposition  that  The  Tem- 
pest was  not  acted  before  February,  1613,  the  close 
verbal  and  literary  coincidences  between  the  play 
and  the  letter  are  of  such  a  kind  as  could  not  be  ac- 
counted for  by  any  mere  conversation  that  Shake- 
speare may  have  had  with  Strachey. 

Sir  Thomas  Gates,  who  brought  to  England  the 
Letter  to  an  Excellent  Lady,  was  a  member  of  the 
council.  The  letter  was  entrusted  by  this  lady  to 
influential  members  of  the  council,  and  one  of  them, 
probably  Sir  Edwin  Sandys,  incorporated  from  it 
such  portions  as  were  fitting  for  the  True  Declara- 
tion issued  to  the  public;  and  Hakluyt  was  allowed 
to  file  it  away  for  printing  in  a  supplement  to  his 
Discoveries  of  thevWorld  when  the  right  time  should 
come.  Sir  Thomas  Gates  and  Richard  Hakluyt  were 


76  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

of  the  four  original  adventurers  nominated  as  prin- 
cipals in  the  earliest  charter  of  the  London  Com- 
pany, 1606,  and  were  vitally  concerned  in  the  suc- 
cess of  the  colony.  The  letter  was  always  in  the 
keeping  of  those  vitally  concerned  until  Purchas 
got  hold  of  it.  That  Shakespeare  was  allowed  to 
read  it  and  to  use  certain  of  its  materials  for  a  play, 
as  with  just  discrimination  and  due  discretion  he 
did,  is  illustrative  of  the  closeness  of  his  intimacy 
with  the  patriot  leaders  of  the  Virginia  enterprise. 

IV 

Among  the  poets  of  Shakespeare's  circle  a  few 
had  been  celebrating  " f ruitfullest  Virginia"  from 
the  day  of  Spenser  down.  Samuel  Daniel  had  sung 
of  Virginia  in  his  Musophilus  of  1603 : 

And  who  in  time,  knows  whither  we  may  vent 
The  treasure  of  our  tongue?    To  what  strange  shores 
This  gain  of  our  best  glory  shall  be  sent; 
T'enrich  unknowing  nations  with  our  stores? 
What  worlds  in  th'  yet  unformed  Occident 
May  come  refin'd  with  accents  that  are  ours, 
Or  who  can  tell  for  what  great  work  in  hand 
The  greatness  of  our  style  is  now  ordain'd  ? 

He  dedicated  the  poem  to  that  patron  of  the  Vir- 
ginian adventure,  Fulke  Greville,  of  whose  proximity 
to  Shakespeare  in  Stratford  we  are  aware.  At  various 
points  the  career  of  Daniel  touches  that  of  Shake- 


Letter  from  Virginia  77 

speare.  He  was  a  protege  and  praiser  of  Southamp- 
ton, and  a  tutor  in  the  Pembroke  family;  and  in 
this  same  year,  1603,  we  find  his  name  associated 
with  those  of  Shakespeare,  Holland,  Jonson,  Dray- 
ton,  Chapman,  Marston,  as  among  the  "most  preg- 
nant witts  of  these  our  times"  still  living. 

In  1605,  Ben  Jonson,  collaborating  in  a  comedy 
of  frequent  reference  to  Virginia,  got  into  trouble 
for  a  passage  written  by  his  colleague,  Marston, 
in  which  it  is  suggested  that,  if  the  King's  brother 
Scots  would  only  betake  themselves  to  the  new 
plantation,  "wee  shoulde  finde  ten  times  more  com- 
fort of  them  there  then  wee  doe  heere."  Said  Jonson 
to  Drummond  of  Hawthornden:  "He  was  delated 
by  Sir  James  Murray  to  the  King,  for  writting  some- 
thing against  the  Scots,  in  a  play  Eastward  Hoe, 
and  voluntarily  imprissonned  himself  with  Chap- 
man and  Marston,  who  had  written  it  [the  play] 
amongst  them.  The  report  was  that  they  should 
then  [have]  had  their  ears  cut  and  noses.  After 
their  delivery,  he  banqueted  all  his  friends;  there 
was  Camden,  Selden  and  others;  at  the  midst 
of  the  feast  his  old  Mother  drank  to  him"  and 
showed  him  poison  which  she  would  have  mixed  in 
his  drink,  "if  the  sentence  had  taken  execution." 
Henceforward,  Jonson  rather  religiously  refrained 
from  references  to  Virginia.  But  he  could  not  keep  his 
hands  off  altogether.  In  his  Staple  of  Newes  (1625) 
he  pokes  fun  at  "the  blessed  Pokahontas,  the  great 
king's  daughter  of  Virginia,"  for  "coming  forth  of," 


78  The  Tempest,  and  an  Unpublished 

therefore    having   entered    into   "the   womb   of   a 
Tavern." 

In  1606,  Shakespeare's  friend  Drayton  crowned 
himself  laureate  of  the  new  English  world.  His 
Ode  to  the  Virginia  Voyage  has  the  proper  pith 
and  swing: 

You  brave  heroique  minds, 
Worthie  your  countries  name, 

That  honour  still  pursue, 

Goe  and  Subdue, 
Whilst  loytering  hinds 
Lurk  here  at  home  with  shame!  .  .  . 

And  in  regions  farre, 

Such  heroes  bring  yee  foorth 

As  those  from  whom  we  came; 

And  plant  our  name 
Under  that  starre 
Not  knowne  unto  our  north! 

Still  another  of  Shakespeare's  fellows  touches 
upon  colonial  events,  George  Chapman,  who  in  his 
Epicede  on  Prince  Henry,  1612,  describes  the  tempest 
off  the  Bermudas  already  immortalized  by  the  greater 
poet:  a  lumbering  effort.  To  Chapman's  Masque 
of  the  Two  Inns  of  Court,  1613,  with  its  troop  of 
Virginia  priests  and  princes  doing  homage  at  the 
nuptials  of  the  Palgrave  and  the  Princess  Elizabeth,  I 
have  already  referred. 

There  are  other  mentions  of  Virginia  in  the  literary 
prose  and  verse  of  the  day;  but  on  the  whole  the 


Letter  from  Virginia  79 

use  made  by  the  poets  of  this  chapter  of  contem- 
porary history  is  slight  and  of  little  imaginative 
worth.  When  we  consider  the  failure  of  others  to 
realize  the  momentous  implications,  our  feeling  is 
not  so  much  of  wonder  that  Shakespeare  made  little 
use  of  destinies  still  on  the  knees  of  the  Gods,  as 
of  happy  recognition  that,  when  he  made  drama 
of  the  environing  romance,  he  failed  not  to  make 
also  shrewd  allusion  to  the  political  breakers,  the 
tempest  of  dissension  that  nearly  drove  the  venture 
on  the  rocks.  If  to  him  and  not  to  his  colleague, 
Fletcher,  could  with  certainty  be  assigned  the  eulogy 
to  James  I  written  about  1612  for  the  last  scene  of 
Henry  VIII: 

Wherever  the  bright  sun  of  heaven  shall  shine, 

His  honour  and  the  greatness  of  his  name 

Shall  be  and  make  new  nations.    He  shall  flourish, 

And,  like  a  mountain  cedar,  reach  his  branches 

To  all  the  plains  about  him.    Our  children's  children 

Shall  see  this  and  bless  Heaven — 

we  might  rejoice  that,  so  far  as  "our  children's  chil- 
dren" are  concerned,  what  were  perhaps  his  latest 
lines  were  those  of  "a  prophet  new  inspired."  But 
Shakespeare  did  not  write  them.  They  are  in  the 
cadence  and  diction  of  Fletcher.1  Still  the  prophecy 

1  The  rhythms  of  the  scene  are  in  general  those  of  Fletcher. 
The  diction  and  figure  of  the  lines  quoted  above  are  a  remi- 
niscence of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Philaster  (1610)  V,  v.  213- 
215:  "That  you  may  grow  yourselves  over  all  lands.  And  live 
to  see  your  plenteous  branches  spring  Wherever  there  is  sun" 


80         The  Leader  of  the  Liberal  Movement — 

lives  in  their  joint  name;  and,  little  as  the  future 
conduct  of  James  justified  any  encomium,  the  lines 
will  breathe  to  all  time  the  confidence  of  one  of 
Shakespeare's  friends  in  the  blessing  that  England 
was  to  confer  upon  the  world :  for  the  plantation  of 
England  in  Virginia  was  a  Christian  crusade  as  well 
as  a  commercial  and  political  undertaking. 

(by  Beaumont);  and  of  V,  iii,  26-30,  "These  two  fair  cedar- 
branches,  the  noblest  of  the  mountain  where  they  grew  straight- 
est  and  tallest,  under  whose  still  shades,"  etc.  (by  Fletcher). 
The  figure  of  tree  and  shade,  of  course  biblical,  occurs  also 
in  the  Virginia  Council's  True  and  Sincere  Declaration  of  Dec.  4, 
1609. 


Sir  Edwin  Sandys  81 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  LEADER  OF  THE  LIBERAL  MOVEMENT — SIR  EDWIN 
SANDYS 

VERY  close  to  Southampton,  Pembroke,  Sack- 
ville,  Neville,  Gates,  Brooke,  Selden,  Digges  and 
the  Ferrars  in  the  effort,  between  1608  and  1624,  to 
erect  a  free  state  in  Virginia,  stood  Sir  Edwin  Sandys, 
the  son  of  the  Archbishop  of  York.  Whether  Sandys 
and  Shakespeare  were  personally  acquainted  we 
know  not,  but  they  had  friends  in  common;  and 
that  they  sympathized  with  the  political  ideals  of 
the  same  master,  we  shall  soon  have  abundant  proof. 
A  man  "of  rare  gifts  and  knowledge  and  great  res- 
oluteness, the  incomparable  leader  of  the  liberal 
statesmen,  one  of  the  greatest  men  of  a  great  age," 
Sir  Edwin  was  the  noblest  patriot  of  the  first  quarter 
of  the  seventeenth  century.  From  1607  to  1624 
he  was  a  member  of  the  Virginia  Council,  and  in 
that  council  was  always  an  ardent  advocate  of  re- 
form. It  was  he  who  drafted  the  charter  of  1609 
by  which  certain  evils  of  the  Virginia  government 
were  removed.  And  it  was,  in  all  probability,  he 
who  prepared  the  instructions  given  to  Gates  in 
that  year,  as  "sole  and  absolute  governor,"  for  the 
suppression  of  factions  and  mutinies  by  martial  law 


82         The  Leader  of  the  Liberal  Movement — 

and  the  institution  of  civil  order.  "In  all  matters 
of  Civil  Justice,"  says  the  author,  "you  shall  find 
it  properest  and  usefullest  to  proceed  rather  upon 
the  naturall  right  and  equitie  than  upon  the  nice- 
ness  and  lettre  of  the  lawe."  *  In  the  preparation 
and  confirmation  of  the  improved  charter  of  1612, 
Sandys  was  prominent.  He  favored  and  supported 
the  institution  of  free  tenancy  and  the  development 
of  private  holdings,  by  which  Governor  Dale  in 
1614  prepared  the  colony  for  its  transition  from  the 
communistic  and  plantation  type  to  that  of  in- 
dividual effort  and  provincial  economy.  In  1617 
Sandys  became  assistant-treasurer  of  the  council, 
and  from  that  date  his  ascendancy  is  marked.  To 
his  effort  was  largely  due  the  charter  of  1618,  by 
which  provision  was  made  for  the  establishment  of 
representative  government  in  Virginia;  and  it  was 
under  his  treasurership,  or  governorship,  of  the  com- 
pany in  1619  that  the  first  Virginia  Assembly  con- 
vened— "the  first  example  of  a  domestic  parliament 
to  regulate  the  internal  concerns  of  this  country, 
which  was  afterwards  cherished  throughout  America 
as  the  dearest  birthright  of  freemen."  z 

In  Parliament,  Sandys  was  of  the  popular  party 
in  opposition  from  1604  to  1614.  From  the  first, 
we  find  him  insisting  that  the  general  and  perpetual 
voice  of  men  is  as  the  voice  of  God  himself.  In 

1  Ashmolean  MS.,  quoted  by  H.  L.  Osgood,  Am.  Col.  Seven- 
teenth Century,  I,  63. 

2  Brown,  Eng.  Pol.  in  Va.,  and  authorities  as  cited,  p.  29. 


Sir  Edwin  Sandys  83 

committee  in  the  House  of  Commons,  1606,  he  says, 
"When  written  law  is  wanting,  we  must  fall  back 
upon  precedent;  when  precedent  fails,  upon  the  ratio 
naturalis^  that  is  to  say,  collective  reason,  the  com- 
mon sense  of  mankind.1  This  was  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  law  of  nature  and  of  nature's  God  recently 
enunciated  by  Sandys's  great  teacher,  Richard 
Hooker,  in  the  treatise  Of  the  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical 
Polity, — an  interpretation  not  unfamiliar  to  Shake- 
speare. In  1612  Sandys  is  a  leader  in  the  Remon- 
strance against  the  King's  conduct  toward  Parlia- 
ment. In  1614  his  famous  speech  of  May  21  sounds 
the  keynote  of  the  constitutional  reform  which  he 
helped  to  achieve  in  both  America  and  England. 
He  maintained  that  even  though  a  Parliament 
would,  it  "cannot  give  liberty  to  the  king  to  make 
laws;"  that  "the  origin  of  every  monarchy  lay  in 
election;"  that  this  election  was  two  fold,  "of  person 
and  of  care" — in  other  words,  "not  only  of  the  in- 
dividual entrusted  with  executive  authority  but  of 
the  character  and  limitations  of  that  authority;" 
that  "the  people  gave  its  consent  to  the  king's  au- 
thority upon  the  express  understanding  that  there 
were  certain  reciprocal  conditions  which  neither 
king  nor  people  might  violate  with  immunity;  and 
that  a  king  who  pretended  to  rule  by  any  other 
title,  such  as  that  of  conquest,  might  be  dethroned, 
whenever  there  was  force  sufficient  to  overthrow 

1  Nathan  Abbott,  Characteristics  of  the  Common  Law,  St. 
Louis  Congress  of  Arts  and  Science,  II,  279. 


84         The  Leader  of  the  Liberal  Movement — 

him."  *  Here  again  the  idea  was  derived  from 
Richard  Hooker.  The  political  concepts  involved, 
as  we  shall  presently  see,  are  those  of  Shakespeare's 
Richard  II  (1595-7),  and  of  the  later  plays  in  so 
far  as  reference  is  made  to  the  relation  of  ruler  and 
subject.  For  the  six  years  following  1614  there 
were  no  parliaments.  From  1621  till  after  the  death 
of  James,  Sandys  heads  the  patriots  in  the  House 
of  Commons — always  the  proponent  and  defender 
of  free  institutions  and  free  speech. 

Of  Hooker,  Sandys  had  been  the  pupil  at  Corpus 
Christi,  Oxford,  and  he  remained  his  lifelong  friend. 
Like  Hooker,  he  was  a  firm  supporter  of  the  discipline 
of  the  Church  of  England,  and  in  his  youth,  at  any 
rate,  an  active  opponent  of  the  separatist  tendencies 
of  Brownists  and  Barrowists.  Like  his  master  he 
favored,  however,  the  emancipation  of  the  mind  in 
matters  of  religious  belief;  and  in  his  maturer  years 
he  became,  as  we  shall  see,  the  champion  of  the 
Separatists  themselves  in  their  efforts  to  secure 
freedom  as  regarding  forms  of  worship  and  ecclesi- 
astical regimen  in  the  New  World.  Civil  liberty 
he  had  advocated  from  his  youth,  but,  again  like 
his  master,  in  terms  of  obedience  to  constitutional 
order  and  to  a  law  higher  still — the  unchanging 
expression  of  universal  reason.  Hooker  admired 
the  polity  of  Calvin's  Republic  of  Geneva,  but 
distrusted  the  dogmatism  of  scriptural  infallibility 

1D'Ewes's  Journals  of  the  House  of  Commons,  I,  492-3; 
and  a  paraphrase  in  D.  N.  B.,  art.  Edwin  Sandys. 


Sir  Edwin  Sandys  85 

upon  which  that  theocracy  rested.  Sandys,  "at 
harte  opposed  to  the  government  of  a  monarchic," 
went  beyond  his  master  in  admiration  of  the  Genevan 
Republic;  but  largely  because  the  civil  polity  of 
Geneva  appeared  to  furnish  a  model,  neither  auto- 
cratic nor  purely  democratic,  but  of  the  aristo- 
democratic  mean.  To  Hooker's  teaching,  to  the 
political  wisdom  of  Sandys,  to  the  legal  experience 
of  such  men  as  Selden  and  Brooke,1  to  the  practical 
intrepidity  of  these  and  of  Southampton,  Sir  Edward 
Sackville,  the  Ferrars,  and  their  fellow-patriots  in 
the  Virginia  Company  and  in  Parliament,  America 
owes  the  colonial  charters  of  1609,  1612,  1618  with 
their  successive  triumphs  over  royal  prerogative; 
and  to  them  it  owes  the  institution  of  common- 
wealths where  the  idea  of  English  liberalism  was 
to  attain  fruition.  To  them  we  owe  the  idea  of  a 
state  whose  sovereignty  is  in  all  the  people,  but 
whose  government,  in  the  hands  of  their  chosen 
representatives  ruling  by  law  of  public  approbation — 
the  idea  of  an  ordered  economy  of  equal  rights,  but 
of  function  according  to  degree  of  merit  and  ability. 
The  solicitude  displayed  by  Sandys  in  matters  of 
civil  polity  is  manifest  as  early  as  1609,  also  in 
regard  to  matters  of  religious  liberty.  No  sooner 
had  the  charter  of  that  year  been  wrested  from  the 
king  than  invitation  was  sent  to  "His  Majesty's 

1  For  Sir  Francis  Bacon,  in  politics  a  reactionary  and  ab- 
solutist, but  associated  with  Selden,  Brooke,  and  Sandys  in  the 
preparation  of  Letters  Patent  for  Virginia,  see  Appendix  D. 


86         The  Leader  of  the  Liberal  Movement — 

subjects  in  the  Free  States  of  the  United  Provinces, 
offering  them  in  an  English  colony  in  America  the 
place  of  refuge  which  they  were  seeking  in  the  Nether- 
lands." *  At  that  time,  because  of  the  opposition 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  king,  the 
move  came  to  nothing.  But  of  "His  Majesty's 
subjects"  those  most  concerned,  even  then,  were 
the  future  Pilgrims  to  New  England;  and  in  the 
invitation  the  hand  of  Sandys  is  unmistakable. 
His  interest  in  at  least  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
English  Separatists  in  Holland,  William  Brewster, 
was  personal  and  of  long  standing.  In  their  youth 
they  must  have  frequently  met  in  the  little  village 
of  Scrooby,  which  was  the  home  of  Brewster;  while 
the  Manor  House  close  by  was  the  property  of 
Edwin's  older  brother,  Sir  Samuel  Sandys,  and  was 
at  various  times  inhabited  by  Edwin  himself.  They 
had,  as  mutual  friend,  George  Cranmer,  who  was 
beloved  of  Sandys  from  boyhood  and  was  Brewster's 
colleague  in  the  official  household  of  Queen  Eliza- 
beth's Secretary  of  State,  Davison.  In  1585  we 
find  Cranmer  and  Brewster  accompanying  the 
Secretary  as  assistants,  on  an  embassy  to  Hol- 
land. Cranmer  and  Sandys  were  at  the  time  fresh 
from  the  tuition  of  Richard  Hooker,  and  thrill- 
ing with  his  idealism,  humanism,  prophetic  in- 
spiration. A  few  years  later  they  are  counseling 
their  tutor  in  the  preparation  of  his  Ecclesiastical 
Polity. 

1  Brown,  Eng.  Pol.  in  Va.,  p.  15. 


Sir  Edwin  Sandys  87 

In  1600  Cranmer  "a  gentleman  of  singular  hopes" 
died.  But  the  connection  between  Sandys  and 
Brewster  continued.  The  latter  had  returned  to 
Scrooby  in  1588.  Till  his  departure  for  Holland  in 
1608  he  was  living  there,  and  as  late  as  1607  was 
conducting  the  prayer  meetings  of  the  Separatists 
in  the  Manor  House  of  Sir  Samuel  Sandys,  "a  firm 
advocate  of  toleration." 

In  1608,  Brewster  and  the  Reverend  John  Robin- 
son with  their  Separatist  congregation  made  their 
escape  from  Scrooby  and  the  surrounding  villages  to 
Holland.  The  proposed  emigration  to  America  of 
the  next  year  was,  as  we  have  seen,  for  the  time 
abandoned;  but  in  1617  two  of  their  congregation, 
then  of  Leyden,  visited  London  and  "found  the 
Virginia  Company  very  desirous  to  have  them  go" 
to  America,  "and  willing  to  grant  them  a  patent 
with  as  ample  privileges  as  they  had  or  could  grant 
to  any."  In  order  to  remove  the  objections  of  the 
king  and  others  to  the  religious  purposes  of  the 
Separatists,  a  letter  of  seven  articles,  signed  by 
Robinson  and  Brewster,  was  conveyed  to  the  Vir- 
ginia Council.  In  response  to  this  we  find  Sandys, 
then  assistant-treasurer,  sending  on  November  12 
his  "hartie  salutations"  to  Robinson  and  Brewster 
and  assuring  them  not  only  that  the  articles  are 
acceptable,  but  that  the  agents  of  the  congregation 
in  London  have  "carried  themselves  with  good 
discretion."  His  letter  concludes:  "If  therefore  it 
may  please  God  so  to  directe  your  desires  as  that 


88         The  Leader  of  the  Liberal  Movement — 

in  your  parts  there  fall  out  no  just  impediments, 
I  trust  by  the  same  direction  it  shall  likewise  appear 
that,  on  our  parte,  all  forwardness  to  set  you  for- 
ward shall  be  found  in  the  best  note  which  with 
reason  may  be  expected.  And  so  I  betake  you  with 
this  designe  (which  I  hope  verily  is  the  worke  of 
God)  to  the  gracious  protection  and  blessing  of  the 
Highest."  He  subscribes  himself  "Your  very  loving 
friend."  *  When,  in  1620,  the  Pilgrims  set  sail,  it 
was  with  a  promise  obtained  by  Sandys  from  the 
king  that  their  freedom  to  worship  as  they  pleased, 
though  not  formally  ratified  by  royal  authority, 
should  at  any  rate  be  connived  at;  and  the  grant 
with  which  they  set  sail — that  of  February,  1620 — 
had  been  "examined  and  sealed  in  view  of  and  with 
approbation  of  the  members  [of  the  council]  present" 
at  the  house  of  Sir  Edwin  Sandys,  then  governor 
of  the  company,  near  Aldersgate.  It  confirmed 
the  Pilgrims  in  all  the  privileges  of  a  body  politic 
already  assured  by  charter  to  the  colonists  of  South- 
ern Virginia:  freedom  of  person,  equality  before 
the  law,  the  right  to  participate  in  the  government 
of  themselves,  and  to  enjoy  all  liberties,  franchises, 
and  immunities  as  if  they  had  been  abiding  and 
born  within  the  realm  of  England.  "For  the  pres- 
ent," says  their  pastor,  the  Rev.  John  Robinson, 
in  his  farewell  letter  to  the  whole  ship's  company, 
"you  are  to  have  only  them  for  your  ordinarie 

1  Bradford,  Plymouth  Plantation,   p.  31;  and  E.  D.  Neill, 
History  of  the  Virginia  Company  of  London,  122-129. 


Sir  Edwin  Sandys  89 

Governours,  which  your  selves  shall  make  choyse 
of  for  that  worke." 

Such  had  been  the  service  rendered  by  Sandys 
to  the  founders  of  New  England.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  qualities  displayed  by  William  Brew- 
ster,  as  Elder  of  the  congregation  in  Leyden  and 
afterwards  in  the  Plymouth  Colony  were  colored 
by  long  association  with  his  "very  loving  friend," 
Sir  Edwin  Sandys  and  their  intimate  from  youth, 
George  Cranmer,  as  well  as  by  a  first-hand  acquaint- 
ance with  the  printed  word  of  Richard  Hooker. 
This  kinship  with  the  school  of  that  great  master  is 
reflected  in  the  genial  humanity,  the  liberal  knowl- 
edge and  outlook,  the  conservative  wisdom,  with 
which  the  historic  Elder  moulded  the  civil  polity 
of  the  first  settlement  in  New  England,  and  held 
in  check  tendencies  elsewhere  manifested  toward 
religious  bigotry  and  oppression. 

Time  and  again  Sandys  resisted  the  king's  arbitrary 
dictation  in  the  Virginia  Company.  His  election 
to  the  governorship  for  a  second  term,  in  1620,  the 
king  forbade, — "declaring  that  he  was  his  greatest 
enemy,  and  that  he  could  hardly  think  well  of  whom- 
soever was  his  friend,"  and  concluding,  "Choose 
the  Devil  if  you  will  but  not  Sir  Edwin  Sandys". 
Southampton,  whom  the  patriots  thereupon  elected 
instead,  undertook  the  office,  saying,  "I  know  the 
king  will  be  angry  at  it,  but  so  the  expectation  of  this 
pious  and  glorious  work  may  be  encouraged,  let 
the  company  do  with  me  what  they  please."  For 


90        The  Leader  of  the  Liberal  Movement — 

their  determination  to  found  in  America  the  free 
state  which  they  could  not  found  at  home,  Sandys 
and  Southampton,  Selden,  Lord  Cavendish,  and  the 
Ferrars,  more  than  once,  suffered  arrest  and  con- 
finement at .  the  king's  pleasure.  More  than  once 
these  men,  and  friends  of  men,  with  whom  Shake- 
speare spake,  were  charged  with  nefarious  political 
designs  against  the  king's  prerogative  within  the 
realm  of  Britain  itself.  The  king  was  warned  by 
the  Spanish  ambassador  that  "though  they  might 
have  a  fair  pretence  for  their  meetings,  yet  his 
majesty  would  find  in  the  end  that  the  Virginia 
Court  in  London  would  prove  a  seminary  for  a 
seditious  parliament."  Count  Gondomar  told  truth. 
Selden,  Sandys,  Nicholas  Ferrar,  Jr.,  Sir  Dudley 
Digges,  Hoskins  and  Martin,  Neville,  Brooke, 
Phillips,  and  others  interested  in  the  company  repre- 
sented the  party  of  reform  in  Parliament.  South- 
ampton represented  it  in  the  Privy  Council.  It 
was  Digges  (the  brother  of  Shakespeare's  Leonard) 
who,  with  Eliot  and  Pym,  impeached  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham  before  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Lords 
in  1626.  It  was  Selden  (the  friend  of  Shakespeare's 
Brooke)  who  instigated  the  memorable  Protest  of 
1621  on  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  Commons; 
and  in  1628  moved  and  helped  to  carry  through  the 
House  the  Petition  of  Right.  In  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany were  the  forerunners,  nay,  the  confederates 
of  the  Hampdens,  Strodes  and  Cromwells  who  were 
to  bring  the  son  of  James  to  the  scaffold  and  establish 


Sir  Edwin  Sandys  91 

constitutional  government  in  England.  In  the  Vir- 
ginia Company,  these  men  and  their  fellow-patriots 
were  already,  by  the  charters  of  1609-18,  the  found- 
ers of  representative  government  in  Virginia;  and 
by  the  charter  of  1620,  of  representative  govern- 
ment in  New  England,  as  well. 

But  the  most  indefatigable  of  the  founders  was  Sir 
Edwin  Sandys.  "An  almost  ideal  administrator,"  as 
Professor  Osgood  has  called  him,  it  was  during  his 
supremacy  in  the  Virginia  Council  that  the  seeds 
were  sown  of  the  liberties  of  America.  He  supported 
Gates  and  Dale  in  the  suppression  of  faction,  fraud, 
and  idleness.  He  devoted  himself  to  the  extinction 
of  communistic  proprietorship,  to  the  proper  develop- 
ment of  the  public  lands  and  the  encouragement  at 
the  same  time  of  private  plantations.  He  strove  to 
keep  out  the  dissolute  with  whom  King  James  would 
flood  the  colony,  and  to  people  it  instead  with  self- 
respecting  and  industrious  farmers  and  artisans. 
He  set  himself  to  diversify  the  industries  of  Virginia, 
to  make  provision  for  the  maintenance  of  religious 
worship  and  instruction,  and  to  endow  a  college  for 
the  colony.  He  prepared  the  way  for  an  adminis- 
trative organization  and  a  political  system.  He  was 
the  heart  of  that  group  of  statesmen,  Southampton, 
Brooke,  Selden,  Sackville,  and  the  Ferrars,  who 
originated  and  made  effective  the  "great  charter" 
of  1618,  and  who  thus  conferred  an  equal,  uniform, 
and  free  government  upon  the  colony.1  It  was 

1 H.  L.  Osgood,  Am.  Col.,  Seventeenth  Century,  80-91.   Neill, 


92         The  Leader  of  the  Liberal  Movement — 

during  his  administration  that  the  first  representa- 
tive assembly  of  Virginia  met.  No  wonder  that  in  the 
spring  of  the  next  year,  1621,  the  Spanish  ambassador 
should  tell  James  I  "it  was  time  for  him  to  look  to  the 
Virginia  Courts  which  were  kept  at  the  Ferrars' 
house,  where  too  many  of  his  nobility  and  gentry 
resorted  to  accompany  the  popular  Lord  Southamp- 
ton and  the  dangerous  Sandys."  Behind  Southamp- 
ton Sandys  was  the  moving  force  when,  in  August  of 
that  year,  the  Virginia  Court  drew  up  an  ordinance 
and  constitution  for  the  colony,  the  intent  of  which 
was  "by  the  divine  assistance  to  settle  in  Virginia 
such  a  form  of  government  as  may  be  to  the  greatest 
benefit  and  comfort  of  the  people,  and  whereby  all 
injustice,  grievances,  and  oppression  may  be  pre- 
vented and  kept  off  as  much  as  possible  from  the  said 
colony."  And  when,  soon  afterwards,  a  conspiracy 
was  hatched  by  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  Captain  Bar- 
grave,  and  others  of  the  Court  party  to  annul  the 
free  charters,  and  the  king  had  placed  the  leaders  of 
the  Patriot  party  under  arrest,  it  was  against  Sandys 
that  the  animus  was  directed.  "By  his  long  ac- 
quaintance with  Sandys  and  his  wayes,"  said  Bar- 
grave,  "he  was  induced  verilie  to  believe  that  there 
was  not  any  man  in  the  world  that  carried  a  more 
malitious  heart  to  the  government  of  a  Monarchic, 
than  Sir  Edwin  Sandys  did;  that  he  had  moved  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  to  give  leave  to  the 

Va.  Co.  of  London,  137-8;  Brown,  First  Republic  in  America, 
291. 


Sir  Edwin  Sandys  93 

Brownists  and  Separatists  to  go  to  Virginia,  and  that 
Sandys  had  told  him  his  purpose  was  to  erect  a  free 
popular  state  there,  himself  and  his  assured  friends  to 
be  leaders,  and  that  he  was  the  means  of  sending  the 
charter  into  Virginia,  in  which  is  a  clause  that  the 
inhabitants  should  have  no  government  putt  upon 
them  but  by  their  own  consente."  1  In  spite  of  what 
King  James  did  in  1624,  with  the  help  of  Warwick, 
Lionel  Cranfield,  Sir  Thomas  Smith  and  the  rest  of 
the  reactionaries,  to  rob  the  colony  of  its  political 
rights  and  to  destroy  all  evidence  of  the  liberal  pur- 
pose and  achievement  of  the  Virginia  Corporation, 
the  political  principles  that  inspired  Sandys,  South- 
ampton, Selden,  Brooke,  Sackville,  Cavendish,  the 
Ferrars,  and  all  that  noble  company,  never  died  out 
of  Virginia,  never  died  out  of  the  northern  colony, 
called  New  England.  These  were  principles  first 
logically  developed  and  clearly  formulated  by  the 
tutor  of  Sir  Edwin  Sandys,  Richard  Hooker.  Disci- 
ples of  Hooker,  associates  of  Shakespeare,  were  the 
founders  of  the  first  republics  in  the  New  World. 

Sir  Edwin  was  not  the  only  member  of  the  Sandys 
family  interested  in  Virginia.  His  older  brother,  Sir 
Samuel,  a  friend  and  abettor  of  Elder  Brewster,  was 
member  of  the  Council  for  Virginia  in  1612  and 
stood  by  Edwin  in  the  company  and  in  Parliament. 
Their  youngest  brother,  George,  joined  the  com- 
pany in  1612,  was  treasurer  of  the  colony  in  Virginia 
in  1621  and  member  of  the  council  there  for  several 

1  Brown,  Eng.  Pol.  in  Va.,  37,  4i,  47,  209;  Genesis,  II,  993. 


94  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 

years.  It  was  in  Virginia  that  he  completed  his 
classic  translation  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses.  The 
reader  may  be  interested  to  learn,  moreover,  that  the 
families  of  Sandys  and  Washington  were  connected. 
Samuel  Sandys,  a  grandson  of  Sir  Samuel,  married 
Elizabeth  Washington,  widow  of  an  ancestral  kins- 
man of  George  Washington;  and  another  nephew  of 
Sir  Edwin's,  Robert  Sandys,  married  Alice  Washing- 
ton of  Sulgrave,  a  great-great-aunt  of  our  first  Pres- 
ident. Robert's  father,  by  the  way — and  this  for  the 
snapper  up  of  unconsidered  trifles — was  godson  and 
namesake  of  Shakespeare's  "Justice  Shallow,"  Sir 
Thomas  Lucy  of  Charlecote.1 

1  For  these  items  and  the  Sandys  genealogy,  see  Genesis  U.  S., 
H,  993-995- 


Principles  of  American  Liberty  95 


CHAPTER  V 

RICHARD  HOOKER,  AND  THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  AMERICAN 
LIBERTY 

IN  Sandys  and  Shakespeare  we  recognize  the 
religious  ideal  of  freedom  tempered  by  reverence,  the 
political  ideal  of  liberty  regulated  by  law  and  con- 
served by  delegated  authority,  the  moderation, 
tolerance  of  divergent  opinion,  the  broad  and  sympa- 
thetic confidence  in  progress  rather  than  in  rigidity 
or  finality,  that  are  characteristic  of  the  most  phil- 
osophical writer  upon  politics,  the  broadest  minded, 
most  learned,  and  most  eloquent  divine  of  sixteenth- 
century  England.  That  not  only  Sandys  and  his 
co-founders  of  colonial  liberty,  but  also  their  suc- 
cessors, the  initiators  of  the  American  Revolution, 
owe  the  central  concepts  of  their  political  philosophy 
to  Richard  Hooker  is  not  difficult  to  show.  That  the 
political  concept  of  Shakespeare's  Richard  II  (1595- 
1 597)5  and  of  his  later  plays  in  so  far  as  reference  is 
made  to  the  relation  of  ruler  and  ruled,  is  directly 
influenced  by  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity  may  be 
impossible  of  proof;  but  that  a  vivid  consimility  of 
thought,  not  only  political,  but  moral  and  psy- 
chological, obtains,  may  I  think  be  shown  beyond 
peradventure.  In  the  present  chapter  we  shall  con- 


96  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 

sider  the  influence  of  Hooker  upon  the  thought  of  his 
political  contemporaries  and  their  successors  in 
America. 

Born  in  Exeter  in  1553,  Richard  Hooker  was  of  a 
family  by  no  means  without  honor  in  provincial 
affairs,  in  law,  and  in  letters.  His  great-grandfather 
had  been  mayor  of  Exeter,  and  through  several 
reigns  he  was  member  of  Parliament.  His  grand- 
father, too,  had  been  mayor  of  that  city.  His  father's 
brother,  John,  chamberlain  of  Exeter,  was  not  only  a 
member  of  Parliament  and  of  reputation  at  the  bar, 
but  a  learned  antiquary.  Editor-in-chief  of  the 
1586-7  issue  of  Holinshed's  Chronicles,  he  con- 
tributed several  augmentations  to  that  monumental 
work;  and  of  some  of  these  Shakespeare  makes  use. 
With  pecuniary  assistance  from  this  uncle  and 
through  his  influence  with  Bishop  Jewell,  young 
Hooker  was  enabled  in  1568  to  enter  Corpus  Christi 
College,  Oxford,  with  a  clerkship.  By  the  kindly 
interest  of  Jewell  he  was  brought  to  the  knowledge  of 
Bishop  Sandys,  afterwards  Archbishop  of  York. 
There  resulted  the  tutorship,  beginning  in  1573,  of 
the  Archbishop's  son,  Edwin,  then  twelve  or  thirteen 
years  of  age,  and  of  young  Cranmer,  grand-nephew 
of  the  martyr.  "Between  Mr.  Hooker  and  these 
his  two  pupils,  there  was  a  sacred  friendship,"  writes 
Walton,  "a  friendship  made  up  of  religious  princi- 
ples, which  increased  daily  by  a  similitude  of  in- 
clinations to  the  same  recreations  and  studies;  a 
friendship  elemented  in  youth,  and  in  an  university 


Principles  of  American  Liberty  97 

free  from  self-ends,  which  the  friendships  of  age 
usually  are  not:  and  in  this  sweet,  this  blessed,  this 
spiritual  amity,  they  went  on  for  many  years." 
When  they  left  college  Hooker  continued  with  his 
studies,  "still  enriching  his  quiet  and  capacious  soul 
with  the  precious  learning  of  the  philosophers, 
casuists,  and  schoolmen;  and  with  them  the  founda- 
tion and  reason  of  all  laws,  both  sacred  and  civil." 
As  fellow  of  his  college  and  lecturer  in  Logic  and  in 
Hebrew  he  gained  wide  and  honorable  recognition. 
In  1585,  upon  recommendation  of  his  old  patron, 
Archbishop  Sandys,  and  others,  he  was  appointed 
Master  of  the  Temple  in  London.  There  his  views, 
already  pronounced,  in  opposition  to  the  "disci- 
pline" of  the  Puritans  as  to  public  worship,  plunged 
him  into  controversy  with  the  leaders  of  the  Presby- 
terian party,  and  impelled  him  to  the  composition 
of  a  treatise  in  justification  "of  the  Laws  of  Eccle- 
siastical Polity."  For  the  completion  of  this  treatise 
he  retired  in  1591  to  the  country  vicarage  of  Bos- 
combe;  and  in  1592  the  first  four  books  were  entered 
at  Stationers'  Hall.  They  were  not  published,  how- 
ever, till  1594.  The  fifth  followed  in  1597.  The  re- 
maining three  books,  published  in  part  from  his 
manuscripts,  did  not  appear  till  long  after  the  year  of 
his  death — 1600.  The  portions  of  the  Polity  which 
especially  engage  our  attention  are  the  Preface  (to 
the  reformers  of  church  discipline),  the  first  book,  and 
a  few  sections  of  the  second.  These  divisions  estab- 
lish the  basis  of  ecclesiastical  laws  in  "law  in  general, 


98  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 

both  human  and  divine,"  outline  the  political  theory 
of  which  the  influence  is  clear  in  Sandys  and  the 
patriots  of  the  Virginia  Council,  and  enunciate  prin- 
ciples, political  and  philosophical,  to  which  there  is  a 
strikingly  remarkable  resemblance  in  various  ut- 
terances of  Shakespeare.  No  reader  or  thinker  of  the 
day  could,  indeed,  have  escaped  the  influence  of 
Hooker.  For,  though  not  an  innovator,  he  was  a 
builder;  his  treatise  "is  the  first  independent  work 
in  English  prose  of  notable  power  and  genius,  and 
the  vigor  and  grasp  of  its  thoughts  are  not  more 
remarkable  than  the  felicity  of  its  literary  style."  l 
Said  King  James,  in  one  of  his  intervals  of  illumina- 
tion, "Though  many  others  write  well,  yet  in  the 
next  age  they  will  be  forgotten;  but  doubtless  there 
is  in  every  page  of  Mr.  Hooker's  book  the  picture  of  a 
divine  soul,  such  pictures  of  Truth  and  Reason,  and 
drawn  in  so  sacred  colours,  that  they  shall  never 
fade,  but  give  an  immortal  memory  to  the  author." 
And  Pope  Clement  VIII  bears  witness:  "There  is  no 
learning  that  this  man  hath  not  searched  into;  noth- 
ing too  hard  for  his  understanding;  this  man  indeed 
deserves  the  name  of  an  author;  his  books  will  get 
reverence  by  age,  for  there  is  in  them  such  seeds  of 
eternity,  that  if  the  rest  be  like  this,  they  shall  last 
till  the  last  fire  shall  consume  all  learning."  2 

That  Sandys's  theory  of  government  by  popular 

1 T.  F.  Henderson,  Art.,  Richard  Hooker,  Encyc.  Brit. 
2  Hooker's  Works   (ed.  Keble),  I,  71-72,  Walton's  Life  of 
Hooker. 


Principles  of  American  Liberty  99 

consent,  and  the  underlying  political  philosophy 
which,  through  the  efforts  of  the  Patriot  party  in 
the  Virginia  Company,  became  concrete  in  the 
earliest  representative  governments  of  America, 
drew  their  immediate  inspiration  from  Richard 
Hooker  will  be  apparent  to  anyone  who  reads  some 
fifteen  pages  in  sections  eight  to  ten  of  the  first  book 
Of  the  Laws  of  Ecclesiastical  Polity  and  half  a 
dozen  pages  on  either  side.  It  will  also  be  apparent 
that  the  same  concepts  underlie  the  contention  and 
the  language  of  the  fathers  of  American  independ- 
ence. For  our  present  purpose  a  few  excerpts  ar- 
ranged under  appropriate  headings,  with  occasional 
italicizing  of  lines  whose  import  passed,  even  though 
by  unconscious  process,  into  the  mind  of  our  Revolu- 
tionary forefathers  and  into  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence, will  suffice.1 

i.  Equality  under  the  Law  of  Human  Nature  or 
Reason. — "God  therefore  is  a  law  both  to  himself," 
says  Hooker,  "and  to  all  other  things  beside.  .  .  . 
Who  the  guide  of  nature  but  only  the  God  of  nature?  .  .  . 
The  general  and  perpetual  voice  of  men  is  as  the 
sentence  of  God  himself.  For  that  which  all  men 
have  at  all  times  learned,  Nature  herself  must  needs 
have  taught;  and  God  being  the  author  of  Nature, 
her  voice  is  but  his  instrument.2  .  .  .  Those  things 
which  are  equal  must  needs  all  have  one  meas- 

1  The  most  accessible  edition  is  Ronald  Bayne's  in  Everyman's 
Library,  no.  201.    To  that  the  references  that  follow  are  made. 
*  Polity,  152,  159,  176. 


ioo  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 

lire.  .  .  .  From  which  relation  of  equality  between 
ourselves  and  them  that  are  as  ourselves,  what  several 
rules  and  canons  natural  Reason  hath  drawn  for 
direction  of  life  no  man  is  ignorant.1  .  .  .  We  see 
then  how  nature  itself  teacheth  laws  and  statutes 
to  live  by.  The  laws  which  have  been  hitherto 
mentioned  [of  natural  Reason]  do  bind  men  ab- 
solutely even  as  they  are  men,  although  they  have 
never  any  settled  fellowship,  never  any  solemn 
argument  amongst  themselves  what  to  do  or  not  to 
do."  2  And  there  is  "no  impossibility  in  nature 
considered  by  itself,  but  that  men  might  have  lived 
without  any  public  regiment."  3  In  other  words, 
the  state  of  nature  though  not  yet  political  is  not 
lawless;  it  is  social:  the  vox  perpetua  populi  is  the  vox 
Dei;  reason  and  equality  prevail,  and,  save  for  the 
presupposition  of  corruption,  peace  might  also  reign. 
2.  The  Social  Compact  and  the  Body  Politic. — 
"But  forasmuch  as  we  are  not  by  ourselves  sufficient 
to  furnish  ourselves  with  competent  store  of  things 
needful  for  such  a  life  as  our  nature  doth  desire,  a 
life  fit  for  the  dignity  of  man;  therefore  to  supply 
those  defects  and  imperfections  which  are  in  us 
living  single  and  solely  by  ourselves,  we  are  naturally 
induced  to  seek  communion  and  fellowship  with 
others.  This  was  the  cause  of  men's  uniting  them- 
selves at  the  first  in  politic  Societies,  which  societies 

1  Polity,  1 80. 

2  Polity,  1 88;  so  also  paragraphs  2  and  3,  following. 
*  Polity,  191. 


Principles  of  American  Liberty  101 

could  not  be  without  Government,  nor  Government 
without  a  distinct  kind  of  Law  from  that  which  hath 
been  already  declared.  Two  foundations  there  are 
which  bear  up  public  societies:  the  one,  a  natural 
inclination,  whereby  all  men  desire  sociable  life  and 
fellowship,  the  other,  an  order  expressly  or  secretly 
agreed  upon  touching  the  manner  of  their  union  in 
living  together.  The  latter  is  that  which  we  call  the 
Law  of  a  Commonweal,  the  very  soul  of  a  politic  body, 
the  parts  whereof  are  by  law  animated,  held  together 
and  set  at  work  in  such  actions  as  the  common  good 
requireth" 

3.  The  Transition  to  Positive  Law;  the  Pursuit 
of  Happiness. — "Laws  politic,  ordained  for  eternal 
order  and  regiment  amongst  men  are  never  framed 
as  they  should  be,  unless  presuming  the  will  of  man 
to   be   inwardly   obstinate,    rebellious,    and    averse 
from  all  obedience  unto  the  sacred  laws  of  his  nature; 
in  a  word,  unless  presuming  man  to  be  in  regard  of 
his  depraved  mind  little  better  than  a  wild  beast, 
they   do    accordingly   provide    notwithstanding   so 
to  frame  his  outward  actions,  that  they  be  no  hin- 
drance unto  the  common  good  for  which  societies 
are  instituted;  unless  they  do  this   they  are   not 
perfect.  .  .  .  All  men  desire  to  lead  in  this  world 
a  happy  life.     That  life  is  led  most  happily  wherein 
all  virtue  is  exercised  without  impediment  or  let.  .  .  . 

4.  Government  by  Consent  of  the  Governed. — 
"To  take  away  all  such  mutual  grievances,  injuries 
and  wrongs,  there  was  no  way  but  only  by  growing 


IO2  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 

into  composition  and  agreement  amongst  themselves, 
by  ordaining  some  kind  of  government  public,  and 
by  yielding  themselves  subject  thereunto;  that  unto 
whom  they  granted  authority  to  rule  and  govern,  by 
them  the  peace,  tranquillity  and  happy  estate  of  the 
rest  might  be  procured"  Men  always  knew  that 
they  might  defend  themselves  and  their  own  com- 
modity against  force  and  injury;  and  that  no  man 
might  in  reason  determine  and  assert,  partial  to 
himself,  his  own  right;  and,  therefore,  that  "strifes 
and  troubles  would  be  endless,  except  they  gave  their 
common  consent  all  to  be  ordered  by  some  whom  they 
should  agree  upon;  without  which  consent  there  were 
no  reason  that  one  man  should  take  upon  him  to  be 
lord  or  judge  over  another;  because,  although  there 
be  according  to  the  opinion  of  some  very  great  and 
judicious  men  a  kind  of  natural  right  in  the  noble, 
wise,  and  virtuous,  to  govern  them  which  are  of 
servile  disposition;  nevertheless  for  the  manifesta- 
tion of  this  their  right,  and  men's  more  peaceable 
contentment  on  both  sides,  the  assent  of  them  also 
who  are  to  be  governed  seemeth  necessary"  Hooker 
then  derives,  as  did  Aristotle,  the  institution  of 
kingship  from  the  analogy  of  fatherhood  in  private 
families.  But  of  kings  as  the  first  kind  of  governors, 
he  remarks — "not  having  the  natural  superiority 
of  fathers,  their  power  must  needs  be  either  usurped, 
and  then  unlawful;  or,  if  lawful,  then  either  granted 
or  consented  unto  by  them  over  whom  they  exercise 
the  same,  or  else  given  extraordinarily  from  God, 


Principles  of  American  Liberty  103 

unto  whom  all  the  world  is  subject."  That,  how- 
ever, he  more  than  questions  the  validity  of  the 
extraordinary  or  supernatural  derivation  of  power 
is  indicated  by  the  stringency  of  the  test  to  which 
he  always  subjects  it,  "by  consent  of  men  or  im- 
mediate appointment  of  God."  And  in  his  conclusion 
the  latter  alternative  seems  utterly  to  vanish:  "How- 
beit  not  this  [the  kingship]  the  only  kind  of  regi- 
ment that  hath  been  received  in  the  world.  The 
inconveniences  of  one  kind  have  caused  sundry 
other  to  be  devised.  So  that  in  a  word  all  public 
regiment  of  what  kind  soever  seemeth  evidently  to  have 
risen  from  deliberate  advice,  consultation  and  com- 
position between  men,  judging  it  convenient  and 
behoveful;  there  being  no  impossibility  in  nature 
considered  by  itself  [i.  e.,  before  its  corruption],  but 
that  men  might  have  lived  without  any  public 
regiment.  .  .  ."  * 

5.  Tyranny  Indefensible;  Aristodemocracy. — "The 
case  of  man's  nature  standing  therefore  as  it  doth, 
some  kind  of  regiment  the  Law  of  Nature  doth  re- 
quire; yet  the  kinds  thereof  being  many,  Nature 
tieth  not  to  any  one,  but  leaveth  the  choice  as  a 
thing  arbitrary.  At  first  ...  it  may  be  that  noth- 
ing was  further  thought  upon  for  the  manner  of 
governing,  but  all  permitted  unto  their  wisdom 
which  were  to  rule,  till  by  experience  men  found 
this  for  all  parts  very  inconvenient.  .  .  .  They  saw 
that  to  live  by  one  man's  will  became  the  cause  of  all 
1  Polity,  190-191. 


IO4  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 

men's  misery.  This  constrained  them  to  come  unto 
laws,  wherein  all  men  might  see  their  duties  before- 
hand, and  know  the  penalties  of  transgressing 
them.1  .  .  .  Laws  do  not  only  teach  what  is  good, 
but  they  enjoin  it,  they  have  in  them  a  certain  con- 
straining force.  .  .  .  Most  requisite  therefore  it  is 
that  to  devise  laws  which  all  men  shall  be  forced  to  obey 
none  but  wise  men  be  admitted.  Laws  are  matters  of 
principal  consequence;  men  of  common  capacity 
and  but  ordinary  judgment  are  not  able  (for  how 
should  they?)  to  discern  what  things  are  fittest  for 
each  kind  and  state  of  regiment.  .  .  .  Even  they 
which  brook  it  worst  that  men  should  tell  them  of 
their  duties,  when  they  are  told  the  same  by  a  law, 
think  very  well  and  reasonably  of  it.  For  why? 
They  presume  that  the  law  doth  speak  with  all  indif- 
ferency;  that  the  law  hath  no  side-respect  to  their  per- 
sons; that  the  law  is  as  it  were  an  oracle  proceeding 
from  wisdom  and  understanding.*  .  .  .  By  the  nat- 
ural law  whereunto  God  hath  made  all  subject, 
the  lawful  power  of  making  laws  to  command  whole 
politic  societies  of  men  belongeth  so  properly  unto  the 
same  entire  societies,  that  for  any  prince  or  potentate 
of  what  kind  soever  upon  earth  to  exercise  the  same 
of  himself,  and  not  either  by  express  commission 
immediately  and  personally  received  from  God 
[Imagine  the  smile  with  which  Hooker  regards  that 
burden  of  proof!],  or  else  by  authority  derived  at  the 

1  Polity,  191-192. 

2  Polity,  193. 


Principles  of  American  Liberty  105 

first  from  their  consent  upon  whose  persons  they  impose 
the  laws,  it  is  no  better  than  mere  tyranny"  l 

6.  Representative  Government. — "Laws  they  are 
not  therefore  which  public  approbation  hath  not 
made  so.  But  approbation  not  only  they  give  who 
personally  declare  their  assent  by  voice,  sign,  or 
act,  but  also  when  others  do  it  in  their  names  by 
right  originally  at  the  least  derived  from  them.  As 
in  parliaments,  councils,  and  the  like  assemblies,  al- 
though we  be  not  personally  ourselves  present,  notwith- 
standing our  assent  is  by  reason  of  other  agents  there 
in  our  behalf.  .  .  .  Laws  therefore  human,  of  what 
kind  soever,  are  available  by  consent." 

As  for  the  filling  of  offices  the  following  is  signifi- 
cant not  only  as  an  instance  of  somewhat  amusing 
practical  wisdom  but  as  indication  of  the  author's 
reverence  for  the  principle  of  degree  dependent  upon 
merit  in  the  administration  of  a  democratic  common- 
wealth: "Where  the  multitude  beareth  sway,  laws 
that  shall  tend  unto  preservation  of  that  state  must 
make  common  smaller  offices  to  go  by  lot,  for  fear 
of  strife  and  division  likely  to  arise;  by  reason  that 
ordinary  qualities  sufficing  for  discharge  of  such 
offices,  they  could  not  but  by  many  be  desired;  .  .  . 
at  an  uncertain  lot  none  can  find  themselves  grieved, 
on  whomsoever  it  lighteth.  Contrariwise  the  greatest, 
whereof  but  few  are  capable,  to  pass  by  popular  election, 
that  neither  the  people  may  envy  such  as  have  those 
honors,  inasmuch  as  themselves  bestow  them,  and 
1  Polity,  194. 


io6  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 

that  the  chiefest  may  be  kindled  with  desire  to  exer- 
cise all  parts  of  rare  and  beneficial  virtue,  knowing 
they  shall  not  lose  their  labor  by -growing  in  fame 
and  estimation  amongst  the  people:  if  the  helm  of 
government  be  in  the  hands  of  a  few  of  the  wealthiest, 
that  then  laws  providing  for  continuance  thereof  must 
make  punishment  of  contumely  and  wrong  offered 
unto  any  of  the  common  sort  sharp  and  grievous"  l 

As  for  monarchies,  especially  the  English  mon- 
archy and  the  power  of  supreme  jurisdiction  there, 
let  the  reader  turn  to  the  eighth  book  of  the  Polity — • 
not  printed  before  the  author's  death  in  1600,  but 
undoubtedly  known  to  Sandys  and  Cranmer,  South- 
ampton and  his  associates — and  there  he  will  find, 
"The  axioms  of  our  regal  government  are  these  lex 
facit  regem  .  .  .  and  rex  nihil  potest  nisi  quod  jure 
potest"  The  law  commands  the  king. 

7.  The  Right  of  Revolution. — "Laws  therefore 
human,"  as  Hooker  has  said  above,  "of  what  kind 
soever,  are  available  by  consent."  That  is  to  say 
laws  positive,  which  vary  according  to  external 
necessity  and  expediency.  Under  such  positive  laws 
are  included  all  the  forms  of  government,  and  the 
forms  are  therefore  alterable  according  to  circum- 
stances. Laws  natural,  on  the  other  hand  are  "eternal 
and  immutable.  .  .  .  But  men  naturally  have  no 
full  and  perfect  power  to  command  whole  politic 
multitudes  of  men,  therefore  utterly  without  our 
consent  we  could  in  such  sort  be  at  no  man's  com- 
1  Polity,  194-196. 


Principles  of  American  Liberty  107 

mandment  living.  And  to  be  commanded  we  do 
consent,  when  that  society  whereof  we  are  part 
hath  at  any  time  before  consented,  without  re- 
voking the  same  after  by  the  like  universal  agree- 
ment." *  .  .  .  And  again,  "The  public  power  of 
all  societies  is  above  every  soul  contained  in  the 
same  societies.  And  the  principal  use  of  that  power 
is  to  give  laws  unto  all  that  are  under  it;  which  laws 
in  such  case  we  must  obey,  unless  there  be  reason  showed 
which  may  necessarily  enforce  that  the  law  of  Reason 
or  of  God  doth  enjoin  the  contrary."  2  In  other  words 
the  right  to  alter  the  form  of  government  resides 
in  the  society  which  by  consent  set  up  the  govern- 
ment and  publicly  approved  the  laws  by  which  that 
government  should  rule. 

The  rationalistic  doctrines  of  Hooker  "were  to 
become  soon  the  most  effective  weapons  in  the 
arsenal  of  those  who  were  assailing  the  church  and 
the  throne."  3  In  them  we  find  not  only  the  germ 
of  Sandys's  speeches  of  1606  and  1614  in  Parliament, 
of  his  denunciation  of  divine  right,  his  insistence 
upon  the  elective  basis  of  authoritative  power,  the 
consent  of  the  governed,  the  rational  and  popular 
sources  of  law,  its  binding  force  upon  king  as  well 
as  subject,  the  natural  and  moral  justification  of 
revolution  against  tyranny;  but  also  the  definite 

1  Polity,  194. 

2  Polity,  228. 

1  Wm.  A  Dunning,  Political  Theories  from  Luther  to  Montes- 
quieu, 210. 


io8  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 

principles  underlying  the  charters  of  steadily  in- 
creasing liberality  achieved  by  Sandys  and  his  fellow 
patriots  for  our  forefathers  in  the  American  colonies. 
We  have  here  the  formulated  concept  and  some- 
times even  the  verbal  basis  of  the  most  pregnant 
utterances  of  the  American  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence, and  the  rationale  of  certain  provisions  in 
the  Constitution.  Hooker's  phrases  have  lived  on 
to  us  because  of  their  grave  and  humble  majesty. 
His  argument  has  lived  on  to  us  because  in  the  long 
struggle  for  English  freedom  that  began  in  his  day 
and  ended  with  his  disciple,  John  Locke,  in  the 
Revolution  of  1688,  it  was  the  accepted  philosophical 
justification  of  the  civil  rights  and  liberties,  the  due 
process  of  law,  and  the  prerogative  of  the  Commons, 
extorted  in  the  thirteenth  century  by  Magna  Charta, 
and  reasserted  in  the  fourteenth  under  Edward  III. 
The  accountability  of  king  to  people  and  their 
right  to  withdraw  power  from  a  tyrant  had  indeed, 
even  earlier,  been  enunciated  by  Wyclif  in  the  reign 
of  Richard  II.  The  origin  of  kingly  power  in  the 
consent  of  the  people  had  been  latent  in  the  fifteenth 
century  De  Laudibus  Legum  of  Fortescue.  He 
derived  from  God  "the  Law  of  Nature,  to  which 
civil  laws  are  only  auxiliary,"  and  for  him,  the  king's 
power  was  not  absolute,  but  limited  by  the  law. 
The  Utopia  of  Sir  Thomas  More  had  in  1516  not 
only  "assigned  the  sovereignty  to  the  people"  but 
had  assumed  "that  society  might  be  conceived  in 
some  radically  different  form."  By  Bishop  Ponet 


Principles  of  American  Liberty  109 

in  1536,  though  for  him  as  for  Aristotle  the  State 
is  not  the  outcome  of  convention  but  itself  a  natural 
and  necessary  institution,  the  right  of  revolution 
had  been  asserted — and  even  that  of  tyrannicide. 
By  Sir  Thomas  Smith,  in  The  English  Common- 
wealth of  1583,  the  omnipotence  of  Parliament  had 
been  laboriously  expounded.  Meanwhile  in  Scot- 
land, the  national  sentiment  that  the  king  holds 
from  the  people  the  right  to  rule  and  that,  if  he  rules 
unworthily,  the  people  may  depose  him,  had  been 
expressed  by  John  Major  as  early  as  1521;  and  more 
explicitly  and  vehemently  by  his  pupils,  Knox  and 
Buchanan:  the  former  in  the  outline  of  his  Second 
Blast,  about  1559,  and  the  latter  in  De  Jure  Regni, 
1579.  By  Buchanan  indeed  the  fundamental  prem- 
ises of  Hooker  had  been  anticipated,  for  he  finds  the 
origin  of  community  in  the  instinct  of  nature,  and 
the  succeeding  origin  of  the  State  in  "the  discords 
of  men,  which  made  it  necessary  to  choose  a  king." 
The  king's  authority,  moreover,  he  derives  from 
the  law:  the  king  is  not  absolute,  and  if  wicked  he 
should  be  cut  off.1 

But  it  was  by  Hooker  that  the  philosophical  se- 
quence of  the  social  compact,  now  abandoned  by 
political  thinkers,  but  in  its  age  and  for  its  purpose 
most  efficient,  was  first  logically  developed.  Here 

1  See  Sir  Frederick  Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics, 
Humboldt  Library,  No.  42,  pp.  22,  26;  and  G.  P.  Gooch,  The 
History  of  English  Democratic  Ideas  in  the  Seventeenth  Cen- 
tury, 32,  34,  42,  47. 


no  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 

first  we  have  the  full  process  of  argument:  the  "state 
of  nature"  in  which  men  are  in  a  "relation  of  equal- 
ity," governed  by  the  "law  of  nature"  which  is  the 
law  of  the  "God  of  nature", — a  "law  eternal  and 
immutable"  under  which  men  are  capable  of  en- 
joying their  natural  rights  of  "peace,  tranquillity, 
and  happy  estate;"  man  inwardly  averse  to  the 
"sacred  laws  of  his  nature,"  and  falling  into  strife; 
the  institution  of  government  and  of  positive  law, 
with  the  transition  to  civil  society  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  these  rights.  It  is  with  Hooker  that  the 
original  contract  between  king  and  people  first  takes 
distinct  shape;  that  the  origin  of  government  is  in 
express  terms  referred  to  "deliberate  advice,  con- 
sultation, and  composition  between  men;"  its  just 
powers  derived  from  "common  consent  all  to  be 
governed  by  some  whom  they  should  agree  upon — 
without  which  consent  there  were  no  reason  that 
one  man  should  take  upon  him  to  be  lord  or  judge 
over  another;"  its  laws  positive  declared  to  be  of 
public  approbation  and  of  force  with  monarch  as 
well  as  subject;  under  such  positive  laws,  "all  the 
forms  of  government  included,  and  the  forms  there- 
fore alterable  according  to  circumstances."  In 
Hooker  we  find  the  constant  implication,  if  not 
enunciation,  that  in  the  people  is  vested  this  right 
of  altering  the  government  when  the  government 
"is  no  better  than  mere  tyranny;"  in  Hooker,  too, 
the  justification  of  "other  kinds  of  regiment  less 
inconvenient  than  kingship:"  of  the  commonwealth 


Principles  of  American  Liberty  in 

"where  the  multitude  beareth  sway" — of  repre- 
sentative government  and  popular  election.  And 
in  Hooker  we  find  the  insistence  upon  choice  of 
officials  not  for  birth  or  station,  or  by  privilege 
royally  bestowed,  but  for  "degree"  of  merit  and 
peculiar  fitness.  This  is  the  order  of  degree  con- 
sistently emphasized  by  his  contemporary,  Shake- 
speare— the  order  consistently  advocated  by  Hook- 
er's followers  in  political  philosophy,  Harrington, 
Algernon  Sidney,  and  Locke.  It  is  the  aristodemoc- 
racy  of  Washington,  Hamilton,  and  John  Adams — 
"the  aristocracy,"  nobly  phrased  by  Jefferson,  "of 
virtue  and  talent,  which  nature  has  wisely  provided 
for  the  direction  of  the  interests  of  society,  and 
scattered  with  equal  hand  through  all  its  conditions," 
an  aristocracy  deemed  essential  to  a  well-ordered 
republic.1 

Through  the  colonial  charters  achieved  by  Hook- 
er's parliamentary  disciples  and  Shakespeare's  pa- 
triot friends  of  the  Virginia  Company,  through  the 
Petition  of  Right,  through  the  Convention  of  Janu- 
ary, 1689,  with  its  solemn  assertion  of  the  "original 
contract  between  king  and  people,"  through  the 
succeeding  Bill  of  Rights,  and  immediately  through 
John  Locke's  Treatise  of  Civil  Government,  Hooker's 
political  conceptions  found  their  way  into  the  mind 
and  speech  of  James  Otis,  Franklin,  Patrick  Henry, 
Samuel  and  John  Adams,  of  Jefferson — and  so  into 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  I  said,  immedi- 
1  Jefferson's  Writings  (Autobiography),  I,  36.  Ed.  1853. 


H2  Richard  Hooker,  and  the 

ately,  through  John  Locke;  for  his  Treatise  of  1690 
was  profoundly  and  widely  studied  by  the  fathers 
of  the  American  Revolution,  and  is  confessedly  a 
reasoned  elaboration  of  Hooker's  ideas  of  civil  polity. 
The  extent  of  the  indebtedness  of  Locke  has  been 
frequently  overlooked,  and  his  fundamental  doctrine 
traced  to  other  sources.  For  instance  to  Grotius. 
But  Grotius  was  only  seventeen  years  of  age,  and 
had  written  nothing  upon  law,  when  Hooker  died. 
It  was  no  doctrine  first  formulated  at  a  later  date 
by  the  Dutch  jurist  and  founder  of  international 
law  that  Locke  was  espousing  when  he  "declared 
the  law  of  nature  to  be  a  determining  body  of  rules 
for  the  conduct  of  men  in  their  natural  condition," 
or  when  he  maintained  that  "under  this  law,  of 
which  reason  is  the  interpreter,  equality  is  the  funda- 
mental fact  in  men's  relations  to  one  another."  Nor 
was  it  on  a  foundation  first  laid  by  Grotius  that 
"Locke  constructed  his  doctrine  as  to  the  natural 
rights  which  belong  to  every  man  in  the  pre-political 
state."  Locke's  conception  of  the  state  of  nature 
as  a  pre-political  rather  than  a  pre-social  condition, 
a  state  in  which  peace  and  reason  and  equality  pre- 
vail, is  derived  directly  from  Richard  Hooker.  In 
fact  Grotius  himself  was  influenced  by  Hooker. 
Hooker's  conception  and  exposition  of  natural  law 
place  him  in  the  group  of  Protestant  thinkers  who 
opened  the  way  for  Grotius.1 

1  Dunning,  The  Political  Philosophy  of  John  Locke,  in  Pol. 
Sci.  Quart.,  XX,  230;  and  his  Political  Theories  from  Luther  to 
Montesquieu,  210. 


Principles  of  American  Liberty  113 

As  Hooker  thought,  so  Locke.  And  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  echoes  the  sentiment  and 
phrase  of  both:  "To  assume  .  .  .  the  separate  and 
equal  station  to  which  the  laws  of  nature  and  of 
nature's  God  entitle  them.  .  .  .  We  hold  these 
truths  to  be  self  evident:  that  all  men  are  created 
equal;  that  they  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with 
inalienable  rights;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness;  that  to  secure  these 
rights,  governments  are  instituted  among  men,  de- 
riving their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed;  that  whenever  any  form  of  government 
becomes  destructive  of  these  ends  it  is  the  right  of 
the  people  to  alter  or  abolish  it.  ...  Governments 
long  established  should  not  be  changed  for  light 
and  transient  causes.  .  .  .  But  when  a  long  train 
of  abuses  and  usurpations,  pursuing  invariably  the 
same  object,  evinces  a  design  to  reduce  them  under 
absolute  despotism,  it  is  their  right,  it  is  their  duty 
to  throw  off  such  government,  and  to  provide  new 
guards  for  their  future  security."  The  cardinal 
doctrines  are  in  direct  descent  from  Hooker's  enun- 
ciation of  them. 

Jefferson  was  right  when  he  said  that  "the  ball 
of  the  Revolution  received  its  first  impulse,  not 
from  the  actors  in  the  event,  but  from  the  first 
colonists."  He  might  well  have  added:  "and  from 
the  Jacobean  protagonists  of  colonial  rights,  their 
brothers  in  England;  from  the  word  oft  reiterated 
in  Parliament  by  Sandys  and  Selden  and  Brooke, 


ii4  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

by  Phillips,  Neville,  Sackville,  and  Digges;  from  the 
motive  and  deed  of  Southampton  and  Cavendish 
and  the  other  Patriots  of  the  Virginia  Company; 
and  from  their  instructor  in  the  principles  of  equal 
opportunity,  self-government,  justice,  and  liberty — 
the  Elizabethan  Greatheart  of  the  Anglican  Church, 
the  most  judicious  political  philosopher  of  the  Shake- 
spearian age,  the  friend  of  Shakespeare's  friends — 
Richard  Hooker." 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State         115 


CHAPTER  VI 

SHAKESPEARE'S  VIEWS  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL  IN  RELA- 
TION TO  THE  STATE 

THESE  being  the  political  views  of  the  philosopher 
who  most  influenced  the  founders  and  the  reasserters 
of  American  freedom,  what  were  those  of  the  su- 
preme dramatist  of  Hooker's  day  ?  That  Shakespeare 
was  acquainted  with  more  than  one  of  the  so-called 
"patriots"  of  the  latter  years  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
and  friendly  with  others  who  joined  the  survivors 
of  that  Essex  uprising  and  devoted  themselves, 
under  the  leadership  of  Sandys  and  Southampton, 
to  measures  of  constitutional  reform  during  the 
reign  of  King  James,  we  have  already  seen.  We 
have  seen  also  that  several  of  these  friends  and  ac- 
quaintances of  Shakespeare  were  foremost  in  the 
liberal  movement  instituted  by  the  Virginia  Council 
for  the  government  of  the  young  plantation;  and 
that  the  poet  was  not  ordinarily  informed,  but  con- 
fidentially, of  their  affairs,  and  of  the  disasters  and 
political  difficulties  that  well  nigh  wrecked  their 
purposes.  With  such  knowledge  on  our  part  as  a 
background  we  may  profitably  examine  the  poet's 
utterances  for  some  indication  of  his  views  con- 
cerning political  matters,  and  of  the  moral  and  social 
principles  underlying.  Is  there  in  his  poems  any 


n6  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

such  indication?  If  he  took  to  heart  at  all  the  reali- 
ties of  life  we  should  expect  to  find  somewhere  in 
the  poems  some  revelation  of  his  measure  of  man 
as  a  moral  and  social  individual.  If  "the  end"  of 
playing  is,  indeed,  "to  hold  as  'twere,  the  mirror 
up  to  nature;  to  show  virtue  her  own  feature,  scorn 
her  own  image,  and  the  very  age  and  body  of  the 
time  his  form  and  pressure,"  we  should  expect  to 
find  in  Shakespeare's  plays  something  of  that  con- 
temporary form  and  pressure;  some  index  of  his 
discrimination  between  virtue  and  vice,  between 
the  essential  and  ephemeral  in  matters  moral  and 
social  and  in  the  political  movements  of  his  period. 
"Shakespeare  was  like  putty,"  says  Professor 
Mackail,1  quoting  from  "a  forgotten  artist  of  the 
last  century — 'Shakespeare  was  like  putty  to 
everybody  and  everything:  the  willing  slave,  pulled 
out,  patted  down,  squeezed  anyhow,  clay  to  every 
potter.  But  he  knew  by  the  plastic  hand  what  the 
nature  of  the  moulder  was.'"  The  words  rankle; 
and  so  too,  perhaps,  Professor  Mackail's  approba- 
tion of  them — "Startling  clearness  in  four  words: 
'Shakespeare  was  like  putty.'"  There  are  half- 
truths  startling  and  delusive,  and  epigrams  at  once 
brilliant  and  opaque.  Shakespeare  would  have 
smiled.  Has  not  Hamlet  forestalled  the  comparison 
and  its  inevitable  even  if  unintended  innuendo  in 
his  dictum  of  the  end  of  playing?  To  show  "the 
very  age  and  body  of  the  time  his  form  and  pressure" 
1  Shakespeare  after  Three  Hundred  Years,  8,  9. 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          117 

implies  a  something  more  than  the  passivity  of 
"clay  to  every  potter."  It  implies  a  discrimination 
between  the  sham  and  the  substance,  between  the 
evanescent  and  the  durable,  between  the  mass  and 
the  meaning.  It  implies  more  than  submission  to 
every  "plastic  hand:"  it  implies  discrimination 
between  botcher  and  fashioner.  It  implies  more 
than  a  knowledge  of  "the  nature  of  the  moulder:" 
it  implies  an  ability  "to  show"  what  is  moulded. 
It  implies,  above  all,  the  creative  power  of  sublima- 
tion: virtue  custom-blurred  resumes  her  radiant  and 
immortal  feature;  scorn  shrivels  before  the  image 
of  her  vice.  The  difference  between  putty  and 
poetry  is  one  of  insight,  choice,  creativity:  that  is 
to  say,  of  truth,  worth  and  beauty.  "Shakespeare's 
preeminence,"  as  Sir  Sidney  Lee  has  said,  "resides 
in  his  catholic  sensitiveness  to  external  impressions, 
and  in  his  power  of  transmuting  them  in  the  crucible 
of  his  mind  into  something  richer  and  rarer  than 
they  were  before."  *  In  the  transmutation  is  the 
revelation  not  only  of  their  truth,  but  of  their  sig- 
nificance both  for  Shakespeare  and  for  us.  May 
we  not,  without  prejudicing  the  issue  by  any  effort, 
here,  at  tracing  the  poet's  indebtedness  to  anyone, 
aim  to  discover  what  Shakespeare  regarded  as  true 
and  significant  concerning  the  worth  of  life,  es- 
pecially in  the  social  and  political  relation  of  the 
individual  to  the  state?  The  reader  who  has  fa- 
miliarized himself  with  the  thought  of  Hooker  and 
1  Shakespeare  and  the  Italian  Renaissance,  17. 


Ii8  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

his  school  may  judge  whether  Shakespeare's  way  of 
thinking  is  of  that  school  if  he  please.  Whether 
there  is  definite  resemblance  between  the  poet  and 
the  divine  we  shall  consider  in  the  next  chapter. 
The  main  thing  here  is  to  sift  out  from  what  is  the 
merely  conventional  or  dramatic  utterance  of  the 
poet  that  which  is  so  spontaneous  and  so  variously 
repeated  that  it  cannot  but  represent  his  personal 
conviction,  his  heart. 

If  we  had  of  Shakespeare  no  residue  but  his 
Sonnets,  we  should  know  something  of  his  view  of 
life.  If  there  were  no  survival  but  the  sixty-sixth 
of  the  collection,  we  should  know  what  values  he 
most  highly  prized.  For,  in  that  sonnet,  neither  a 
mere  literary  exercise  nor  an  utterance  of  mechanical 
adulation,  he  enumerates  the  phenomena  that  he 
most  deplores: 

Tired  with  all  these  for  restful  death  I  cry, — 

As  to  behold  desert  a  beggar  born, 

And  needy  nothing  trimmed  in  jollity, 

And  purest  faith  unhappily  forsworn, 

And  gilded  honour  shamefully  misplaced, 

And  maiden  virtue  rudely  strumpeted, 

And  right  perfection  wrongfully  disgraced, 

And  strength  by  limping  sway  disabled, 

And  art  made  tongue-tied  by  authority, 

And  folly,  doctor-like,  controlling  skill, 

And  simple  truth  miscalled  simplicity, 

And  captive  good  attending  captain  ill;  — 

Tired  with  all  these,  from  these  I  would  be  gone, 

Save  that,  to  die,  I  leave  my  love  alone. 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          119 

With  these  aspects  of  contemporary  life  Shake- 
speare is  tired.  From  his  disapprobation  we  learn 
what  things  make  life  for  him  worth  living.  They 
are  the  recognition  of  merit,  irrespective  of  birth 
or  wealth,  merit  "trimmed  in  jollity;"  the  establish- 
ment— in  the  seats  of  authority — of  honor,  right 
perfection,  and  the  strength  that  makes  for  national 
welfare;  freedom  of  art  and  speech;  the  triumph  of 
science  over  fatuity  and  pedantry;  the  conservation 
of  faith  and  the  sacredness  of  virtue;  reverence  for 
truth;  goodness  controlling  evil;  and  love  that,  if 
all  the  rest  were  dead,  might  still  make  life  worth 
while. 

It  is,  indeed,  more  than  probable  that  some  of 
Shakespeare's  sonnets  were  exercises  of  skill,  and 
some,  products  of  conventional  adulation.  I,  for 
one,  hold  that  all  are  not  to  be  explained  by  either 
premise.  With  regard  to  many  of  them,  Words- 
worth's judgment  cannot  be  gainsaid;  in  these 
"Shakespeare  expresses  his  own  feelings  in  his  own 
person."  In  others,  even  though  conventional,  we 
find  Shakespeare  rephrasing  positively  or  negatively 
one  and  another  of  his  articles  of  faith,  especially 
his  faith  in  the  worth  of  spontaneity,  of  ungilded 
merit,  of  truth,  of  constancy,  of  virtue, — 

The  summer's  flower  is  to  the  summer  sweet, 
Though  to  itself  it  only  live  and  die; 
But  if  that  flower  with  base  infection  meet, 
The  basest  weed  outbraves  his  dignity; 


I2O  Shakespeare"1 's  Views  of  the 

his  faith  in  the  glory  of  independence,  independence 
of  popular  acclaim  or  of  largess  showering  from  the 
stars, — 

Great  princes'  favourites  their  fair  leaves  spread 
But  as  the  marigold  at  the  sun's  eye; 
And  in  themselves  their  pride  lies  buried, 
For  at  a  frown  they  in  their  glory  die. 
The  painful  warrior  famoused  for  fight, 
After  a  thousand  victories  once  foil'd, 
Is  from  the  book  of  honour  razed  quite 
And  all  the  rest  forgot  for  which  he  toil'd. 

Shall  we  shrug  the  shoulder,  saying  these  are  but 
the  commonplaces  of  a  contemporary  mode, — these 
and  the  passionate  asseverations  of  the  ecstasy, 
solace,  abiding  presence  and  sufficiency  of  love,  the 
tender  ideality  of  self-abnegation  in  life  or  death? 
Is  there  no  genuineness  of  personal  conviction  in 
the  poet's  worship  of  youth  and  beauty  and  of  the 
truth  that  is  the  vital  breath  of  both?  and  in  the 
pathos  dear  to  him  of  their  brevity  and  swift  decay? 
Is  there  no  poignancy  of  actual  experience  in  the 
recurrent  theme  of  frailty,  the  insufficiency  of  the 
lust  of  the  flesh,  the  confession  of  his  own  weakness, 
and  the  challenge  to  his  "poor  soul?" — 

Poor  soul,  the  centre  of  my  sinful  earth  .  .  . 
Buy  terms  divine  in  selling  hours  of  dross; 
Within  be  fed,  without  be  rich  no  more: 
So  shalt  thou  feed  on  Death  that  feeds  on  men, 
And  Death  once  dead,  there's  no  more  dying  then. 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          121 

This  unquestioning  acceptance  of  restful  Death, 
Death  the  gentle,  the  consoling,  the  healing,  is  it  in 
no  wise  Shakespeare's  own  acceptance? 

Shall  we,  meticulously  sceptical,  urge  that  in  all 
this  there  is  naught  but  the  echo  of  contemporary 
fashion,  or  of  the  Renaissance  Platonism  of  Italy, 
or  of  Ronsard,  Jodelle,  and  Desportes  in  France? 
If  so,  we  must  also  contend  that  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
who,  in  his  passionate  praise  of  "Stella,"  lifted  many 
a  thought  and  line  from  the  sonneteers  of  Italy  and 
France,  did  not  love  Stella, — his  Penelope  Devereux 
of  girlhood,  his  Lady  Rich  of  married  life.  But  we 
know  that  he  did  love  her,  and  that  consumedly. 
And  because  Michael  Drayton  borrowed  from  the 
sonnet-sequence  of  Claude  de  Pontoux  the  very 
name  under  which  he  worshipped  his  "soul-shrined 
saint,"  and  because  he  gathered  from  Ronsard  and 
Desportes  flower  and  fragrance  for  poetic  tribute 
to  her, — the  Anne  Goodere  of  his  youth,  the  Lady 
Rainsford  of  his  after  years — shall  we  say  that  he 
did  not  love  her — love  her  honorably  to  the  day 
of  his  death? 

The  poet-lover  may  lean  upon  convention  and 
borrow  fantasies  from  distant  sources  and  sing  with 
ancient  echoes.  He  did  in  Shakespeare's  time.  He 
did  in  Burns's  time.  Consciously  or  not,  he  sings  his 
love  in  borrowed  strains  today.  He  takes  his  good 
where  he  may  find  it;  the  gold  is  none  the  less  his  or 
hers  when  laid  at  the  loved  one's  feet.  And  so  of 
Shakespeare's  attestations  of  friendship  and  devo- 


122  Shakespeare1  s  Views  of  the 

tion;  so  also  of  his  attestations  of  the  essentials  of 
human  worth,  in  personal  intercourse  or  public  life. 
These  are  Shakespeare,  whether  they  be  garbed  in 
appropriated  phrase  and  conventional  mode  or  not. 
They  are  Shakespeare  if  in  his  sonnets  they  are  his 
habitual  utterance;  the  more  so,  if  they  recur  in  the 
fundamental  view  of  life  presented  by  his  dramas. 
Even  though  expressed  in  dramatic  character,  they 
are  Shakespeare  when  they  recur  in  crises  of  emo- 
tional emergency,  and  when  the  conduct  of  the  drama 
has  made  clear  the  universal  value  to  be  attached  to 
the  emotion.  They  are  Shakespeare  if  they  recur 
in  the  prophetic  or  chorus-like  utterance  of  super- 
numeraries when  the  poet  does  not  care  to  be  a 
dramatist.  They  are  Shakespeare  if  they  recur  in 
soliloquies  and  asides  not  vital  to  the  dramatic 
evolution,  or  in  vital  utterances  "when  the  poet 
forgets  to  be  a  dramatist"  and,  as  it  were  subcon- 
sciously, speaks  with  his  own  voice.  Most  unmis- 
takably is  that  voice  Shakespeare's  when  the  creed 
he  utters,  or  his  creatures  utter,  accords  with  the 
temper  of  the  poet  as  attested  by  those  who  knew 
him, — by  Chettle  and  Weever,  Scoloker,  Davies  of 
Hereford,  Freeman,  Heminges  and  Condell,  Ben 
Jonson,  and  many  another  from  1592  to  the  day 
of  his  death  and  later.  To  some  of  those  he  is 
the  poet  of  love, — "They  burn  in  love,  thy  children, 
Shakespeare  het  them."  To  others,  he  is  "friendly 
Shakespeare,"  "gentle  Shakespeare,"  "sweet  Shake- 
speare," "so  worthy  a  friend  and  fellow,"  "so 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          123 

lovable."  "I  loved  the  man,"  says  Jonson,  "and  do 
honor  his  memory  (on  this  side  idolatry)  as  much  as 
any.  He  was  indeed  honest  and  of  an  open  and  free 
nature."  To  Chettle,  "his  upright  dealing"  again, 
"which  argues  his  honesty,"  appeals,  and  also  "his 
civil  demeanor;"  to  Davies  of  Hereford,  his  "hon- 
esty" again,  and  his  "courage,"  his  generosity  "of 
mind  and  mood,"  his  "wit,"  his  kingly  quality: 

Thou  hadst  been  a  companion  for  a  king; 
And  been  a  king  among  the  meaner  sort. 
Some  others  rail;  but  rail  as  they  think  fit, 
Thou  hast  no  railing,  but  a  reigning  wit: 
And  honesty  thou  sow'st  which  they  do  reap. 

For  more  than  one  who  knew  him  his  estimate  of 
manhood,  his  appraisal  of  social  honor,  of  civic  duty, 
and  of  civil  polity,  as  well  as  his  wisdom  and  skill, 
poetry,  passion,  originality,  are  manifest  in  his 
works, — "Then  let  thine  own  works  thine  own  worth 
upraise."  "All  that  he  doth  write,"  cries  Leonard 
Digges,  "is  pure  his  own" — 

Where  Shakespeare  lived  or  spake,  Vermin  forbear, 

Lest  with  your  froth  you  spot  them,  come  not  near  .  .  . 

Brief,  there  is  nothing  in  his  wit-fraught  Book, 

Whose  sound  we  would  not  hear,  on  whose  worth  look 

Like  old  coin'd  gold,  whose  lines  in  every  page 

Shall  pass  true  current  to  succeeding  age. 

For  more  than  Freeman,  Digges,  and  Ben  Jonson,  in 
those  works  of  Shakespeare  does  Shakespeare's  very 
self  appear: 


124  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

Look  how  the  father's  face 
Lives  in  his  issue;  even  so,  the  race 
Of  Shakespeare's  mind  and  manners  brightly  shines 
In  his  well  turned  and  true  filed  lines: 
In  each  of  which  he  seems  to  shake  a  lance, 
As  brandished  at  the  eyes  of  Ignorance. 

May  we  not  in  spite  of  those  who,  revolted  by  the 
uncritical  enthusiasm  of  the  eighteenth  century  and 
the  idolatry  of  the  early  nineteenth,  have  proceeded 
to  divest  the  poet  of  spontaneity,  the  dramatist  of 
personality,  after  all  recognize  a  man  Shakespeare,  a 
Shakespeare  of  unborrowed  and  unassumed  thought 
and  passion,  and  of  conviction  repeatedly  and  dis- 
tinctly uttered?  Scepticism  is  not  the  only  hall- 
mark of  scholarship,  certainly  not  of  constructive 
criticism.  The  philological  and  historical  critics 
have  not  been  merely  destructive:  by  clearing  away 
the  underbrush  they  have  enabled  us  to  see  the 
trees. 

II 

Shakespeare's  ideal  of  manhood,  as  prefigured  in 
Sonnet  66,  reappears  and  is  reinforced  throughout 
his  plays.  The  personality  revealed  in  the  sonnets, 
and  attested  by  those  who  spoke  with  him  face  to 
face,  illumines  in  clearer  detail  and  broader  sweep 
the  concrete  mortals  of  his  mimic  world.  From  the 
kingdom  of  vision  his  creatures  step  witnessing  to  his 
"cloudless,  boundless  human  view."  Explicitly  or 
impliedly,  not  professed  but  confessed,  his  human 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          125 

view  is  ours  to  know.  It  lives  in  the  serious  avowal 
of  the  souls  that  he  has  created  sincere — Hamlets, 
Cordelias,  Isabellas,  Brutuses,  Vincentios,  Henry 
the  Fifths;  in  the  jocose  or  ironical,  and  therefore 
inverted,  intimation  of  the  Falstaffs,  and  the  in- 
nuendo of  jesters,  clowns,  and  fools;  in  the  subacid  of 
Beatrice  and  Rosalind;  in  the  perverted  and  neg- 
atively interpretable  creed  of  the  Richards,  lagos  and 
lachimos;  in  the  throe  of  action  and  passion,  and  in 
the  cry  wrung  from  the  heart  of  emergency;  for 
Shakespeare  shaped  the  emergency,  thrilled  in  the 
throe,  pulsed  in  the  heart  of  his  fashioning. 

What,  according  to  Shakespeare's  conception,  an 
Englishman  should  be  (for  in  spite  of  clime  or  time  or 
garb,  all  his  characters  are  English  at  heart)  is 
somewhat  on  this  wise:  in  individual  and  social 
relations,  first  and  foremost  free  and  independ- 
ent,— "every  man's  soul  is  his  own;"  he  "bends  not 
low"  nor  speaks  "in  a  bondman's  key,  with  bated 
breath  and  whispering  humbleness;"  he  is  proud,  but 
modest  withal, — for  "whatever  praises  itself  but  in 
the  deed,  devours  the  deed  in  the  praise;"  his  courage 
is  fostered  by  habit,  not  commandeered  by  law;  he 
has  the  dauntless  spirit  of  resolution;  in  trial  he  is  as 
"one  in  suffering  all,  that  suffers  i.i-th'ng;"  in  effort 
he  has  no  "traitor  doubts"  that  "make  us  lose  the 
good  we  oft  might  win  by  fearing  to  attempt."  His 
breastplate  is  the  "heart  untainted." 

But  independence  avails  him  little  unless  he  have 
an  abiding  sense  of  obligation  to  the  society  of  which 


126  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

he  forms  a  part.  He  is  a  man  of  "plain  and  simple 
faith,"  "armed  strong  in  honesty,"  "precise  in 
promise-keeping,"  despising  deceit — "the  seeming 
truth  which  cunning  times  put  on  to  entrap  the 
wisest," — a  man  of  justice,  a  man  of  mercy,  a  man 
moving  in  "the  perfect  ways  of  honor,"  a  man 
who  cares  not  for  ceremony,  or  that  scutcheon  of 
honor  of  which  Falstaff  talks,  that  "lives  not  with 
the  living  or  the  dead."  The  man  after  Shake- 
speare's heart  lives  as  knowing  that  "no  man  is  the 
lord  of  anything  till  he  communicate  his  parts 
to  others;"  that  "Nature  demands  both  thanks  and 
use." 

But  neither  independence  nor  sense  of  obligation 
profits  unless — and  here  Shakespeare's  humanity  be- 
comes humanism — unless  one  be  of  well-ordered, 
well-rounded  composition.  "Folly  and  ignorance  are 
the  common  curse  of  mankind."  But  judgment 
alone,  "the  pale  cast  of  thought,"  makes  cowards  of 
us;  and  intellect  alone  breeds  cunning  and  sophistry 
to  gloze  lust  and  violence  with  smiles  and  scripture 
and  artificial  tears,  to  "add  colors  to  the  chameleon 
and  set  the  murderous  Machiavel  to  school."  And 
the  man  of  impulse  alone — his  "blood  will  be  his 
direction  to  his  death:"  he  is  but  "passion's  slave." 
Shakespeare's  man  of  parts  is  capable  of  independ- 
ence and  of  service  to  his  fellows,  precisely  because 
he  is  endowed  with  "large  discourse  looking  before 
and  after"  and  "God-like  reason,"  and  conscience; 
and  because  he  is  blessed  with  "blood  and  judgment 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          127 

so  well  commingled"  that  he  is  "not  a  pipe  for  For- 
tune's finger  to  sound  what  stop  she  please." 

Ill 

This  being  somewhat  Shakespeare's  ideal  of  man- 
hood in  its  individual  and  social  relations,  what  is 
his  thought,  implicit  or  expressed,  of  the  relation  of 
the  individual  to  the  state? 

Shakespeare  was  not  a  prophet,  if  by  prophet  we 
mean  one  who  foresees  and  foretells  the  future.  If, 
however,  by  "prophet"  we  mean  one  who  inter- 
prets aright  the  conditions  of  the  time,  "completely 
embodying  the  present  in  which  the  future  is  con- 
tained," perceiving  in  the  Ygdrasil  of  history  not 
merely  the  branches  of  good  and  evil,  but  the  po- 
tencies sure  to  leaf,  sure  to  bud  and  flower  and  seed, — 
if  that  is  what  we  mean,  then  Shakespeare  was  a 
prophet:  a  seer,  an  instinctive  sage,  an  unprofessed 
political  philosopher,  of  observation,  of  reflection,  of 
common  sense.  As  in  his  religious  outlook  there  is — 
to  avail  ourselves  of  Carlyle — "no  narrow  supersti- 
tion, harsh  asceticism,  intolerance,  fanatical  fierce- 
ness, or  perversion;"  but  yet  "a  Revelation,  so  far 
as  it  goes,"  of  the  "thousand-fold  hidden  beauty  and 
divineness  dwelling  in  all  Nature,  which  let  all  men 
worship  as  they  can,"  so  in  his  outlook  upon  political 
life,  though  he  was  in  "every  way  an  unconscious 
man,  conscious  of  no  heavenly  message,"  there  is  a 
revelation  of  truth  which,  because  visible  in  his  day, 
is  still  truth  and  visible  for  all  days. 


128  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

He  was,  as  has  been  frequently  said,  not  in  the 
modern  sense  democratic.  How  could  he  be?  Rep- 
resentative government  was  not  yet  firmly  estab- 
lished :  it  had  not  vindicated  many  of  the  rights  which 
belonged  to  it  by  precedent,  still  less  begun  to  assert 
the  constitutional  authority  that  it  exercises  today. 
And  as  for  pure  democracy,  or  mobocracy,  even  if 
one  had  envisaged  for  Shakespeare  a  perfectibility 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  in  moral  character,  in  mental 
sanity,  in  political  wisdom,  in  unselfish  devotion  to 
the  common  control  of  common  interests,  how  could 
he  with  his  sanity,  his  perception  of  "the  common 
curse  of  mankind,"  have  accepted  the  vision  as  other 
than  an  insubstantial  pageant?  The  populace  of  his 
ken  was  unguided,  lacking  civil  polity  and  respon- 
sibility, unity  of  national  interest,  devotion  to  moral 
ideas  and  historical  precedent.  Though  he  had 
faith  in,  and  sympathy  with,  the  sterling  virtues  of 
the  individual  Englishman,  his  knowledge  of  English 
history,  as  well  as  his  experience  of  the  workings  of 
the  contemporary  mob,  justified  a  profound  distrust 
of  the  political  functions  of  any  mob — by  and  for 
all.  Flat  democracy,  triumphant,  directly  legislating, 
unselfishly  and  consistently,  by  native  impulse  and 
universal  ballot — initiative,  referendum,  and  recall — 
for  common  as  well  as  individual  interests,  and 
honorably  administering  the  affairs  of  a  nation  at 
home  and  abroad,  he  would  distrust  if  he  were  living 
today.  But  to  representative  government,  so  far  as 
it  existed  in  his  day — the  government  of  all,  for  all, 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          129 

by  the  best  among  them,  by  those  who  had  with 
distinction  studied  and  achieved  the  advantage  of 
the  state — to  such  aristocratic  republicanism,  every 
line  that  he  has  written  of  king  or  peer,  politician, 
burgess,  or  peasant  in  relation  to  the  state,  shows 
that  he  yielded  his  whole-hearted  allegiance. 

While  he  repudiates  "the  many-headed  multi- 
tude" as  politically  inconstant,  undeliberative,  the 
dupe  of  the  demagogue,  he  is  not  unfriendly  to  the 
man  of  low  degree  as  such. 

As  a  playwright  he  of  course  adapts  himself  not 
only  to  the  immediate  intelligence  and  favor  of 
those  for  whom  he  writes  but  to  the  changing  tem- 
per of  the  day.  "In  the  follies  of  his  mobs,  as  in 
the  sarcasms  of  his  aristocrats,"  says  Mr.  Mackail 
with  an  admirable  suggestiveness,  "he  reflects  the 
spirit  of  his  audience  whether  at  Whitehall  or  at 
the  Bankside.  It  is  only  a  further  exemplification 
of  this  that  in  his  later  work  the  tone  changes,  and 
he  sounds  in  Lear  and  elsewhere  the  note  of  pas- 
sionate pity  for  the  poor.  That  note  is  his  swift 
response  to  the  ground-swell  of  the  new  democracy. 
The  Tudor  dynasty  had  become  extinct,  and  with 
it  the  iron  Tudor  system  of  repression  and  reaction 
had  come  to  an  end;  the  revolutionary  movements 
of  the  Stuart  period  were  beginning  to  stir.  In  these 
later  plays,  as  in  the  earlier,  Shakespeare  is  still 
giving  out  what  he  received;  he  makes  vocal,  per- 
sonifies, vitalizes  the  impressions  of  his  actual  en- 
vironment." True,  this,  so  far  as  it  goes.  Shake- 


130 

speare  gives  out  what  he  received;  but  from  the 
impressions  that  he  receives,  he  selects.  Shakespeare 
personifies  and  vitalizes;  but  the  vitality  that  he 
confers  is  the  vitality  of  poetry — which  is  a  more 
philosophical  and  a  higher  thing  than  history,  for 
it  tends  to  express  the  universal.  What  spirit  of 
the  audience  he  reflects,  he  polarizes  and  purifies. 
When  he  responds  to  the  ground-swell  of  the  new 
democracy,  the  response  is  of  his  heart.  When  he 
makes  vocal  the  murmur  of  the  age,  the  voice  is  his 
own.  When,  in  the  sonnet  which  we  have  quoted, 
he  cries  for  restful  death  rather  than  "behold  desert 
a  beggar  born"  and  "gilded  honor  shamefully  mis- 
placed," his  heart  is  speaking.  And  it  is  his  voice  that 
we  hear  in  the  lament  of  Lucrece, — 

The  orphan  pines  while  the  oppressor  feeds; 
Justice  is  feasting  while  the  widow  weeps. 

So,  too,  in  the  plays  at  a  later  period.  When  Hamlet 
soliloquizes : 

For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time, 

The  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely,  .  .  . 

The  insolence  of  office,  and  the  spurns 

That  patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes, 

When  he  himself  might  his  quietus  make, 

it  is  the  heart  of  Shakespeare  that  responds  to  the 
ground-swell,  the  voice  of  Shakespeare  that  expresses 
"the  higher  thing  than  history."  When  Lear  recog- 
nizes in  the  beggars  on  the  country-side  brethren  of 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          131 

his  misery,  the  note  of  passionate  pity  is  no  phono- 
graphic regurgitation  of  impressions  mechanically 
registered: 

Poor  naked  wretches,  wheresoe'er  you  are, 
That  bide  the  pelting  of  this  pitiless  storm, 
How  shall  your  houseless  heads  and  unfed  sides, 
Your  loop'd  and  window'd  raggedness,  defend  you 
From  seasons  such  as  these?    O,  I  have  ta'en 
Too  little  care  of  this!    Take  physic,  pomp; 
Expose  thyself  to  feel  what  wretches  feel, 
That  thou  mayest  shake  the  superflux  to  them, 
And  show  the  Heavens  more  just. 

Through  the  lips  of  the  outcast  king,  Shakespeare's 
humanity  speaks.  It  is  because  the  mutable  rank- 
scented  many  are  to  Coriolanus,  "You,  common  cry 
of  curs,"  it  is  because  he  thinks  of  them  as  if  he 
"were  a  God  to  punish,  not  a  man  of  their  infirmity," 
that  Coriolanus  goes  to  his  fate.  While  Shakespeare 
laughs  indeed  at  the  foibles  of  the  crowd,  he  satirizes 
the  vanities  and  the  follies  of  the  rich  as  well  and 
arraigns  the  oppressive  tyranny  and  arrogance  of  a 
heartless  oligarchy.  He  is  neither  communist  nor 
social  democrat,  born  out  of  season.  Nor  is  he  a 
proponent  of  the  aristocratic  or  monarchic  rule  that, 
deriving  from  birth  or  wealth  or  princes'  favor  arrays 
itself  in  insolence  and  ceremony  and,  seeking  its 
own  end  and  ease  before  that  of  the  State  manipu- 
lates the  multitude.  For  a  Brutus  of  noble  though 
ill-timed  ideals,  but  of  tender  heart  for  the  rude  and 


132  Shakespeare' 's  Views  of  the 

suffering  peasantry,  he  has   naught  but  pity  and 
admiration. 

Shakespeare  was  not  anti-democratic,  but  like 
the  sanest  political  thinkers  of  his  day — the  Hookers, 
Sandyses,  Seldens,  Southamptons,  and  the  colonial 
builders  of  Virginia  and  New  Plymouth, — "aristo- 
democratic."  That  coinage  I  should  not  use  had 
not  the  adequate  "aristocratic"  lost  in  common 
parlance  its  wholesome  and  primal  significance,  and 
dwindled  to  connote  a  single  property  of  hereditary 
and  titled  caste.  It  has  been  said  that  "Shake- 
speare's whole  reading  of  history  is  aristocratic." 
True;  but  not,  as  Hazlitt  and  Whitman  conceived, 
anti-popular  and  feudal.  If  we  apply  the  word 
"aristocratic"  to  his  ideal  of  government  we  must 
invest  it  with  its  true  intent,  of  government  by  the 
best — that  which  Plato  had  in  mind  when  he  de- 
scribed the  ideal  state  as  one  in  which  wisdom,  cour- 
age, temperance,  and  justice  obtain  and  are  ad- 
ministered for  the  happiness  of  all  by  guardians 
selected  from  all,  for  their  superior  fitness,  their  ex- 
cellence. Shakespeare  was  writing  his  Julius  Caesar 
at  just  the  time  when  patriots  whom  he  knew  were 
revolting  with  Essex  against  "the  iron  Tudor  sys- 
tem of  repression."  He  was  writing  his  Hamlet, 
with  its  dilemma  of  duty  in  suspense,  the  year  after 
Essex  had  been  executed,  and  while  Southampton 
was  in  the  Tower.  He  was  writing  his  Lear  when 
Sandys  and  Southampton  were  organizing  the  move- 
ment for  democracy  which  stayed  not  even  with 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          133 

the  downfall  of  the  Stuarts.  He  wrote  his  Coriolanus 
about  the  time  that  Sandys,  Southampton,  and 
Brooke  were  combating  both  autocratic  injustice 
and  communistic  disorder  in  Virginia,  and  were 
achieving  the  first  free  charter  for  the  colony. 

Shakespeare  is  particularly,  as  Bagehot  has  told 
us,  the  poet  of  personal  nobility.  And  nobility  to 
Shakespeare  is  "in  the  last  resort  a  matter  of  char- 
acter rather  than  of  descent.  He  insists,  it  is  true, 
upon  obedience  of  word  and  deed  to  prescribed  au- 
thority, and  that  authority  in  his  world  was,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  vested  in  kings  and  princes,  but 
none  the  less  his  root-principle  is  that  of  noblesse 
oblige"  l  Such  nobility  the  King  in  All's  Well  that 
Ends  Well  graciously  expounds: 

From  lowest  place  when  virtuous  things  proceed, 

The  place  is  dignified  by  the  doer's  deed: 

Where  great  additions  swell's,  and  virtue  none, 

It  is  a  dropsied  honour.  .  .  .    That  is  honour's  scorn, 

Which  challenges  itself  as  honour's  born 

And  is  not  like  the  sire.    Honours  thrive 

When  rather  from  our  acts  we  them  derive 

Than  our  foregoers. 

With  what  frequency  does  the  poet  indulge  in  so- 
liloquy (sometimes  appropriate  to  character  and 
occasion,  sometimes  not)  of  unfitness  and  corruption 
in  high  estate!  "For  who  shall  go  about,"  reflects 

1E.  de  Selincourt,  English  Poets  and  the  National  Ideal,  n, 
13. 


134  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

the  Prince  of  Arragon  in  Portia's  casket-room  at 
Belmont, 

Who  shall  go  about 
To  cozen  fortune  and  be  honourable 
Without  the  stamp  of  merit?    Let  none  presume 
To  wear  an  undeserved  dignity. 
O,  that  estates,  degrees,  and  offices 
Were  not  derived  corruptly,  and  that  clear  honour 
Were  purchased  by  the  merit  of  the  wearer! 
How  many  then  should  cover  that  stand  bare! 
How  many  be  commanded  that  command! 
How  much  low  peasantry  would  then  be  gleaned 
From  the  true  seed  of  honour!  And  how  much  honour 
Picked  from  the  chaff  and  ruin  of  the  times 
To  be  new- varnished! 

All  this  from  one  who  has  been  sneering  at  "the  fool 
multitude"  and  is  about  to  be  presented  with  a 
fool's  head  because,  though  deeming  wisely  of  those 
who  should  wear  dignity,  he  unwisely  deems  himself 
one  such.  This  passage,  with  its  emphasis  upon 
degree  and  honor  "purchased  by  the  merit  of  the 
wearer,"  was  written  the  year,  or  the  year  after, 
Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  which  makes  the 
same  plea,  had  appeared.  And  the  passage  of  like 
spirit  in  All's  Well  is  of  the  same  period. 

As  for  kings,  why  spend  words  to  demonstrate 
what  every  reader  of  Shakespeare  must  see  for  him- 
self? .The  poet  believes  neither  in  vassalage  nor 
divine  right.  It  is  only  kings  like  the  ineffectual 
and  histrionic,  sentimental  and  tyrannous  Richard  II, 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          135 

who  has  sucked  the  life-blood  of  his  realm,  that 
boast,  "Not  all  the  water  in  the  rough  rude  sea  Can 
wash  the  balm  off  from  an  anointed  king.  .  .  .  The 
deputy  elected  by  the  Lord."  Only  such,  that  circle 
themselves  with  glorious  angels  in  God's  heavenly 
pay;  only  such,  or  criminals  who,  like  Claudius, 
have  won  a  throne  by  murder  and  would  by  murder 
hold  it,  that  hedge  themselves  with  divinity.  Solely 
to  buttress  a  ruined  cause — foreseeing  the  civil  dis- 
asters that  follow  dethronement  without  due  trial 
by  one's  peers — do  prelates,  like  King  Richard's 
Bishop  of  Carlisle,  put  forward  the  current  hy- 
pothesis of  the  divine  right  of  kings.  Quite  other, 
the  wisdom  of  John  of  Gaunt:  "God's  substitute, 
His  deputy  anointed  in  his  sight"  becomes,  by  crime, 
God's  quarry;  when  the  monarch  commits  his 
anointed  body  to  the  cure  of  flatterers,  and  leases 
out  his  England  "like  to  a  tenement  or  pelting 
farm,"  and  makes  the  state  of  law  a  "bondslave  to 
the  law,"  he  deposes  himself.  The  tragedy  of  so- 
called  divine  right  pervades  Shakespeare's  his- 
torical plays, — the  tragedy  of  mortal  pretension 
vain  in  itself,  destructive  and  pitiable  when  coupled 
with  self-devotion,  incompetence,  unfaithfulness, 
unscrupulousness,  disloyalty  to  the  realm,  to  the 
people.  For  ruler  and  ruled  are  one  people.  The 
people,  though  yet  unconscious  of  it,  are  sovereign 
and  in  them  resides  whatever  divine  right  there  be. 
Hooker  and  the  leaders  of  the  nascent  liberal  move- 
ment in  England  were  not  unconscious  of  that.  Nor 


136  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

was  Shakespeare:  his  historical  plays  are  a  body- 
blow  to  the  theory  of  the  divine  right  of  kings. 

Something  of  the  characteristics  a  king  should 
not  have,  of  the  graces  he  should,  we  read  in  the 
colloquy  between  Macduff  and  the  prince  whom  he 
summons  to  the  realm  as  its  rightful  savior  from 
oppression — truest  issue  of  the  throne.  To  Malcolm 
professing  vices  that  he  has  not,  lust  and  stanchless 
avarice,  Macduff  replies, — 

Boundless  intemperance 
In  nature  is  a  tyranny:  it  has  been 
The  untimely  emptying  of  the  happy  throne, 
And  fall  of  many  kings; 

and  then,  "This  avarice  .  .  .  hath  been  the  sword 
of  our  slain  kings."  What  "the  king-becoming 
graces"  are,  the  prince,  disclaiming  them  with 
politic  pretence,  recites: 

Justice,  verity,  temperance,  stableness, 
Bounty,  perseverance,  mercy,  lowliness, 
Devotion,  patience,  courage,  fortitude. 

The  play  celebrates  the  coming  to  England  of  the 
Malcolm's  royal  line,  the  fancied  hope  of  Southamp- 
ton and  other  of  Shakespeare's  friends.  But  with 
what  unconscious  prophetic  irony  is  the  play  in- 
vested! The  vices  professed  may  not  have  been 
those  of  all  four  Stuart  pretenders  to  divine  right. 
But  neither  were  the  virtues;  and  twice  in  the  Stuart 
career  was  England  to  witness  "the  untimely  empty- 
ing of  the  happy  throne." 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          137 

The  reciprocal  responsibility  of  prince  and  sub- 
ject in  allegiance  to  the  commonwealth  is  a  prime 
lesson  of  The  Life  of  Henry  V.  With  all  his  faults  of 
historical  verisimilitude  and  Shakespearian  limita- 
tion, Shakespeare's  favorite  prince  is  ruler  and  serv- 
ant both.  He  is  the  soul  of  a  unified  people — "such 
a  plain  king  that  thou  wouldst  think  I  had  sold  my 
farm  to  buy  my  crown."  He  is  the  representative 
and  instrument  of  the  national  consciousness  and 
will.  He  advances  no  proprietary  claim  to  God. 
He  is  according  to  his  lights  (and  Shakespeare's) 
a  democratic  king: — "For  though  I  speak  it  to 
you,"  says  he,  masquerading  as  a  private,  to  privates 
Bates,  Court,  and  Williams:  "though  I  speak  it 
to  you,  I  think  the  king  is  but  a  man,  as  I  am;  the 
violet  smells  to  him  as  it  doth  to  me;  all  his  senses 
have  but  human  conditions;  his  ceremonies  laid 
by,  in  his  nakedness  he  appears  but  a  man."  Then 
he  continues,  "Every  subject's  duty  is  the  king's; 
but  every  subject's  soul  is  his  own."  Every  sub- 
ject's duty  is  the  king's,  for,  but  for  ceremony,  the 
peasant  "had  the  forehand  and  the  vantage  of  a 
king."- 

The  slave,  a  member  of  the  country's  peace, 
Enjoys  it,  but  in  gross  brain  little  wots 
What  watch  the  king  keeps  to  maintain  the  peace, 
Whose  hours  the  peasant  best  advantages. 

"Every  subject's  duty  is  the  king's."  Whether 
in  the  words  of  Henry  V  or  the  loyal  Fauconbridge 


138  Shakespeare' 's  Views  of  the 

or  Gaunt  or  the  gardener  at  Langley,  every  subject — 
from  peasant  to  peer  all  "dear  friends"  of  king  and 
country — is  under  obligation  to  the  state. 

From  those  "whose  limbs  were  made  in  England," 
whose  lives  of  peace  have  been  passed  in  "modest 
stillness  and  humility,"  naught  else  can  be  expected 
when  the  blast  of  war  blows  than  that  they  "stiffen 
the  sinews,  summon  up  the  blood,"  prove  their  love 
of  country,  even  to  the  death:  they  "can  not  die 
anywhere  so  contented  as  in  the  king's  company, 
his  cause  being  just  and  his  quarrel  honorable." 
Nay,  more,  implies  our  patriot-poet,  unflinching: 
if  none  but  the  patriot-king  and  his  council  know 
the  cause  to  be  spotless,  still  with  them  marches  the 
obligation  of  the  subject.  "Every  man's  soul  is 
his  own:"  but  with  individual  freedom  and  respon- 
sibility there  goes,  hand  in  hand,  political  duty — 
the  patriotism  of  national  faith,  unity,  devotion. 
Such  patriotism  is  the  premise  of  Fauconbridge's 
assurance: 

Come  the  three  corners  of  the  world  in  arms, 

And  we  shall  shock  them.    Nought  shall  make  us  rue, 

If  England  to  itself  do  rest  but  true. 

This  obligation  of  reciprocal  responsibility  is  not, 
however,  an  argued  patriotism  with  Shakespeare; 
it  is  the  instinctive  patriotism  of  national  pride, 
gratitude,  and  love.  Gaunt's  apostrophe  is  not  of 
the  head  but  the  heart: 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          139 

This  royal  throne  of  kings,  this  sceptred  isle, 

This  earth  of  majesty,  this  seat  of  Mars, 

This  other  Eden,  demi-paradise, 

This  fortress  built  by  Nature  for  herself 

Against  infection  and  the  hand  of  war, 

This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world, 

This  precious  stone  set  in  the  silver  sea, 

Which  serves  it  in  the  office  of  a  wall 

Or  as  a  moat  defensive  to  a  house 

Against  the  envy  of  less  happier  lands, 

This  blessed  plot,  this  earth,  this  realm,  this  England,  .  .  . 

This  land  of  such  dear  souls,  this  dear,  dear  land, 

Dear  for  her  reputation  through  the  world. 

Lyrical  outbursts  of  this  kind  may  sound  insular; 
but  to  infer  that  Shakespeare's  patriotism  was 
merely  insular  is  to  ignore  his  absorption  of  much 
that  was  best  in  the  literature  and  spirit  of  the  Re- 
naissance, and  his  sympathy  with  it.  Timely  elab- 
oration of  the  thought  is  afforded  by  Sir  Sidney  Lee.1 
"Through  Shakespeare's  lifetime,"  says  he,  "Eng- 
lishmen explored  Italy  in  numbers  which  increased 
year  by  year.  .  .  .  They  were  impressed  not 
merely  by  the  country's  intellectual  and  artistic 
triumphs,  but  by  the  refined  amenities  of  her  social 
life.  .  .  .  'Homekeeping  youth  have  ever  homely 
wits,'  wrote  Shakespeare.  A  perfect  man,  he  added, 
was  one  who  was  tried  and  tutored  outside  his  native 
country.  The  dramatist  laughingly  detected  in 
the  travelled  Englishman  no  worse  failing  than  a 

1  Shakespeare  and  the  Italian  Renaissance,  11-18. 


140  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

predilection  for  outlandish  manners  and  dress  which 
offended  insular  taste.  ...  A  large  part  of  Italian 
poetry  and  prose  of  the  Renaissance  was  accessible 
to  him  in  English  translation.  ...  I  claim  Shake- 
speare as  the  greatest  of  humanists  in  the  broad 
sense  which  the  term  justly  bears  in  the  history  of 
the  Italian  Renaissance."  .  .  .  But,  continues 
Sir  Sidney,  "he  cannot  be  suspected  of  cosmopoli- 
tanism in  its  undesirable  significance.  The  bracing 
air  of  toleration  fed  his  spirit;  but  that  virtuous 
sustenance  never  impaired  his  love  of  his  own  coun- 
try or  his  confident  faith  in  her  destiny.  It  was  he 
who  apostrophized  his  country  and  countrymen  in 
his  own  magnificent  diction  as  'This  happy  breed 
of  men,  this  little  world  .  .  .  This  blessed  plot, 
this  earth,  this  realm,  this  England.'  At  the  same 
time  Shakespeare,  with  almost  equal  fervor,  dep- 
recates the  shortness  of  vision  which  ignores  the 
patriotism  of  other  countries,  and  refuses  all  fellow- 
feeling  with  them: 

Hath  Britain  all  the  sun  that  shines?    Day,  night, 
Are  they  not  but  in  Britain?  .  .  .  Prithee,  think 
There's  livers  out  of  Britain. 

Shakespeare  is  at  once  the  noblest  expositor  of  pa- 
triotism, and  the  most  resolute  contemner  of  in- 
sularity." 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          141 

IV 

Our  poet's  political  philosophy,  if  such  we  may 
term  his  imaginative  interpretation  of  history  and 
of  legal  and  political  theory,  is  based,  like  that  of 
the  greatest  philosopher  of  all  time,  upon  justice, 
fraternity  of  effort,  allegiance. 

His  justice  is  not  of  legal  quibble.  Though 
Chief  Justice  Campbell  expressed  his  astonishment 
at  the  poet's  acquaintance  with  legal  technicalities, 
Shakespeare's  knowledge  of  the  law  was  "neither 
profound  nor  accurate,"  nor  was  it  more  in  evidence 
than  that  of  many  contemporary  sonnetteers  and 
dramatists.  However  acquired — by  contact  with 
its  procedure  in  his  own  lawsuits  and  in  those  of 
his  family  and  neighbors,  or  by  intercourse  with 
the  members  of  his  social  circle  in  the  Inns  of 
Court,  or  by  absorption  of  the  litigious  atmos- 
phere of  his  day, — his  respect  for  the  dignity 
of  law  is,  with  a  few  exceptions,  not  discoverable 
in  his  portrayal  of  trial  scenes,  or  in  his  employ- 
ment of  legal  dialectic  and  phraseology,  or  in  the 
frequent  metaphor  and  color  of  the  law.  "Its 
solemn  absurdities,  its  quibbling  prevarications, 
its  formal  futilities  tickled  Shakespeare's  sense  of 
humor."  *  His  respect  for  law  is  displayed  in  the 
treatment  of  its  nobler  aspects,  moral,  positive, 
divine. 

Arthur  Underbill  in  Shakespeare's  England,  I,  381  ft  sfq., 
and  Review  in  The  Times,  Literary  Supplement,  July  21,  1916. 


142  Shakespeare1  s  Views  of  the 

His  justice  is  of  the  moral  law,  the  same  for  dy- 
nasty and  for  nation  as  for  individual.  It  is  of  cumu- 
lative fate  or  fortune,  Moira,  "visiting  the  sins  of 
the  fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and 
fourth  generation  of  those  that  hate  God,  and  show- 
ing mercy  unto  thousands  of  them  that  love  him 
and  keep  his  commandments."  This  is  the  moral 
teaching  of  his  Histories,  when  regarded  in  their 
chronological  sequence  from  the  origins  of  family 
strife  in  Richard  II  to  the  reconciliation  of  the  war- 
ring factions  at  the  end  of  Richard  III.  The  His- 
tories afford  not  only  the  spectacle  of  innocent 
suffering  and  of  just  retribution  in  careers  proceed- 
ing to  catastrophes  fraught  with  both  pity  and 
fear,  but  also  the  spectacle  of  inherited  tendencies 
descending  the  generations  with  boon  as  well  as 
retributive  bane.  The  sequence  thus  mitigates  the 
aspect  of  inexplicable  catastrophe,  essential  to  the 
highest  kind  of  tragedy:  it  reasserts  justice  as  mercy 
in  the  careers  of  many  whose  characteristics,  inherited 
or  acquired,  are  in  conformity  with  the  welfare  of  the 
corporate  movement.  Likewise,  in  serious  applica- 
tion to  the  individual  irrespective  of  heredity,  his 
law  is  that  of  "poetical  justice  unknown"  as  Pro- 
fessor Mackail  has  said  "to  any  court  or  code." 

Shakespeare's  justice  is  also  of  law  positive  in  its 
nobler  function, — "all-binding,  keeping  form  and 
due  proportion,"  even-handed  in  execution.  "Go, 
bind  thou  up  yon  dangling  apricocks" — says  the 
gardener  of  Langley  in  that  immortal  idyllic  inter- 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          143 

scene    of    Richard    II    where    Shakespeare's    sheer 
imagination  plays: 

Go,  bind  thou  up  yon  dangling  apricocks, 

Which,  like  unruly  children,  make  their  sire 

Stoop  with  oppression  of  their  prodigal  weight; 

Give  some  supportance  to  the  bending  twigs. 

Go  thou,  and  like  an  executioner, 

Cut  off  the  heads  of  too  fast  growing  sprays, 

That  look  too  lofty  in  our  commonwealth; 

All  must  be  even  in  our  government. 

You  thus  employed,  I  will  go  root  away 

The  noisome  weeds,  which  without  profit  suck 

The  soil's  fertility  from  wholesome  flowers. 

The  poet's  justice  is  also  of  law  divine.  God  is 
"the  top  of  judgment,"  and  of  mercy,  too:  "It  is 
an  attribute  to  God  himself;  And  earthly  power 
doth  then  show  likest  God's,  When  mercy  seasons 
justice."  A  justice  this,  of  moral  authority  higher 
than  the  will  of  earthly  judge  or  monarch  or  of  the 
state;  a  justice  of  which  some  glimpse  is  vouch- 
safed to  mortals  through  that  "discourse  of  reason" 
with  which  the  Maker  has  endowed  them. 

That  Shakespeare's  philosophy  of  the  state  as- 
sumes fraternity  of  effort  has  appeared  from  the 
foregoing.  "We  few,"  says  Henry  V  on  the  mem- 
orable day  of  Agincourt," shall  be  remembered" — 

We  few,  we  happy  few,  we  band  of  brothers, 
For  he  to-day  that  sheds  his  blood  with  me 
Shall  be  my  brother. 


144  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

The  state  demands  not  only  the  devotion  of  the 
individual,  but  the  cooperation  of  all  for  common 
order  and  common  control.  Shakespeare  looked 
back  to  an  England  divided  against  itself  and  devas- 
tated by  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  during  an  agony 
of  which  the  cessation  was  no  farther  removed  from 
his  day  or  consciousness  than  are  the  French  Revolu- 
tion and  the  Napoleonic  wars  from  ours.  Those 
English  civil  wars  still  appealed  vividly  "to  the 
popular  imagination;  and  the  force  of  tradition  was 
then  far  more  potent  than  it  can  ever  be  in  an  age 
•of  primers."  l  Is  it  strange  that  the  political  moral 
of  his  "histories"  from  the  reign  of  John  to  that 
of  Richard  III,  and  sometimes  of  plays  remote 
from  England,  but  dealing  with  history,  is  the  su- 
preme importance  of  national  concord  in  affliction 
as  in  prosperity?  But  this  national  concord  is  not 
of  flat  democracy  likely  to  degenerate  into  anarchy 
and  then  tyranny,  but  of  free  cooperation  of  distinct 
classes,  according  to  their  several  degrees  of  merit 
and  fitness,  for  the  good  of  the  community.  It  is  the 
polity  of  a  commonwealth  or  res  puUica  advocated 
by  many  of  Shakespeare's  contemporaries  and 
predecessors — the  commonwealth  that  Sir  Thomas 
Smith  as  early  as  1583,  or  Richard  Hooker  in  1594, 
had  described  as  the  best  kind  of  democracy.  The 
theory  derives  directly  from  consideration  of  English 
history  but  ultimately  from  the  teachings  of  Plato. 
In  the  Republic,  says  Socrates,  "temperance  re- 
1  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  Shakespeare,  40-41. 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          145 

sembles  a  concord  of  harmony  .  .  .  producing  a 
unison  between  the  weakest  and  the  strongest  and 
the  middle."  From  Plato's  Republic  Cicero  bor- 
rowed the  analogy;  and  from  Cicero's  Republic,  of 
which  we  have  only  fragments,  the  passage  came 
to  the  Elizabethans  through  St.  Augustine's  City 
of  God.1  "For  government,"  says  Shakespeare's 
Exeter  in  Henry  V  (1599),  using  almost  the  words  of 
St.  Augustine's  Latin, 

For  government,  though  high  and  low  and  lower, 
Put  into  parts,  doth  keep  in  one  consent, 
Congreeing  in  a  full  and  natural  close, 
Like  music. 

And  the  Archbishop  standing  by,  continues  the 
thought: 

Therefore  doth  heaven  divide 
The  state  of  man  in  divers  functions, 
Setting  endeavour  in  continual  motion, 
To  which  is  fixed  as  an  aim  or  butt, 
Obedience:  for  so  work  the  honey-bees, 
Creatures  that  by  a  rule  in  nature  teach, 
The  act  of  order  to  a  peopled  kingdom. 

Then  follows  that  description  of  the  hive — none 
the  less  indicative  of  Shakespeare's  view  because  per- 
haps elaborated  from  Lyly's  Euphues, — which  with 
wondrous  wisdom  develops  the  aristodemocratic 
ideal  of  a  realm  in  which  all  functions  and  degrees, 
the  *  emperor"  with  the  rest,  play  for  the  common 
1  See  H.  R.  D.  Anders,  Shakespeare's  Books,  278. 


146  Shakespeare* >  Views  of  the 

service  their  willing  parts.  Still  more  definitely 
emphasizing  the  democratic  quality  of  the  ruler, 
the  figure  recurs  in  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  of 
1595-1602,  where  the  king,  sickening  to  death,  wishes 

Since  I  nor  wax  nor  honey  can  bring  home, 
I  quickly  were  dissolved  from  my  hive, 
To  give  some  labourers  room. 

To  this  figure  of  the  well-ordered  government,  with 
its  observance  of  degrees  in  duly  proportioned  sub- 
ordination of  all  to  the  common  weal,  Shakespeare 
returns  a  few  years  later  in  his  Troilus  and  Cressida, 
reinforcing  it  this  time  with  what  looks  like  an 
adaptation  from  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity. 
Here  his  mouthpiece  is  Ulysses — 

When  that  the  general  is  not  like  the  hive 

To  whom  the  foragers  shall  all  repair, 

What  honey  is  expected  ?    Degree  being  vizarded, 

The  unworthiest  shows  as  fairly  in  the  mask. 

The  heavens  themselves,  the  planets,  and  this  centre 

Observe  degree,  priority  and  place.  .  .  . 

Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string, 

And,  hark,  what  discord  follows !    Each  thing  meets 

In  mere  oppugnancy. — 

A  thought  again  and  again  emphasized  in  the  politi- 
cal writings  of  the  Renaissance;  a  thought  so  re- 
current in  divers  Shakespearian  plays,  and  so  ad- 
mirably extended  beyond  the  dramatic  need,  that 
it  impresses  us  as  indubitably  the  poet's  conviction 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          147 

concerning  the  sine  qua  non  of  political  potency  and 
peace.  That  the  poet  does  not,  however,  by  the 
insistence  of  his  Ulysses  upon  degree,  endorse  the 
extreme  aristocratic  interpretation  of  degree  as 
bound  up  with  "primogeniture  and  due  of  birth," 
appears  from  the  fact  that  in  the  same  sequence  he 
includes  degrees  and  laurels  compassed  not  by  birth 
but  worth.  The  political  philosophy  of  England 
under  the  Tudors  recognized,  indeed,  the  kingly 
office  "as  the  source  from  which  the  various  titles 
of  honor  and  grades  in  the  higher  ranks  of  society 
spring;"  but  Shakespeare  was  not  alone  in  recog- 
nizing also  a  more  democratic  ideal — in  calling  for 
the  recognition  of  merit  irrespective  of  birth,  in 
deploring  "right  perfection  wrongfully  disgraced," 
in  calling  for  government  by  fraternity  of  effort. 
The  thought  was  that  of  Hooker  and  Fulke  Greville 
and  of  the  active  leaders  of  the  liberal  movement 
from  1594  down. 

From  disregard  of  the  principles  of  which  we 
have  spoken  factions  arise:  allegiance  is  vitiated, 
and  the  national  existence  imperilled.  In  Measure 
for  Measure,  of  about  the  same  date  as  the  Troilus, 
the  greatest  peril  to  the  state  proceeds,  according 
to  the  good  but  indulgent  Duke,  from  laws  "let 
sleep,"  from  false  report  and  backwounding  calumny 
of  those  in  constituted  authority:  then  "liberty 
plucks  justice  by  the  nose."  In  2  Henry  VI,  com- 
piled earlier,  "the  commons,  like  an  angry  hive  of 
bees  That  want  their  leader,  scatter  up  and  down 


148  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

And  care  not  who  they  sting  in  his  revenge."  In 
King  John,  also  written  earlier,  it  is  because  discon- 
tented visionaries  have  been  suborned  by  foreign 
cajolery  to  quarrel  with  obedience, 

Swearing  allegiance  and  the  love  of  soul 
To  stranger  blood,  to  foreign  royalty, 

that  the  "inundation  of  mistempered  humor"  has 
overspread  the  realm.  And  it  is  only  when  such 
"destruction  and  perpetual  shame"  have  been 
pushed  "out  of  the  weak  door  of  our  fainting  land" 
that  the  ever-loyal  Fauconbridge,  Shakespeare's 
patriot  of  the  play,  utters  his  prophetic  and  not 
altogether  boastful  assurance — 

This  England  never  did,  nor  never  shall, 
Lie  at  the  proud  foot  of  a  conqueror, 
But  when  it  first  did  help  to  wound  itself. 

The  whole  course  of  our  poet's  political  drama  makes 
for  the  development  of  a  national  consciousness  by 
directing  the  freedom  of  the  individual  toward  the 
service  of  the  common  weal  and  ideal — in  coopera- 
tion, aristodemocratic  according  to  just  degrees  of 
function  and  desert,  under  the  moral  leadership  not 
of  an  autocrat  nor  an  oligarchy  but  of  the  best.  As 
in  Richard  II  and  Henry  V,  so  supremely  in  King 
John — plays  befitting  the  critical  period  in  national 
affairs,  1594-1599 — is  the  lesson  of  national  unity 
Shakespeare's  dominant  motive.  Though  even  the 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          149 

lines  last  quoted  are  based  upon  those  of  an  earlier 
Fauconbridge  in  an  anonymous  play,  the  poetic 
fervor  and  patriotism  in  the  Life  and  Death  of 
King  John  are  Shakespeare's  own.  To  a  degree  not 
paralleled  by  any  contemporary  dramatist,  and  with 
an  impressiveness  one  may  call  unique,  King  John 
is  also  a  lesson  in  national  sovereignty.  "Shake- 
speare is  determined  to  write  a  drama  of  which  the 
hero  shall  be  not  a  king,  but  the  nation  itself;  the 
genius  of  a  people,  as  apart  from  the  caprice  or  the 
villainy  of  its  rulers.  The  people  of  England,  as 
impersonated  in  Fauconbridge  are  the  character 
and  the  theme  of  King  John."  1 


Though  Shakespeare  depicts  war  as  "the  son  of 
Hell ;"  though,  when  the  wars  of  the  Roses  are  ended, 
Richmond's  prayer  for  "smooth-faced  Peace  With 
smiling  Plenty  and  fair  prosperous  days"  is  also 
Shakespeare's;  though  the  poet  greets  the  accession 
of  James  I  with  "Peace  proclaims  olives  of  endless 
age," — his  is  not  the  peace  described  by  one  of  his 
clowns,  "a  very  apoplexy,  lethargy,  mulPd,  deaf, 
sleepy,  insensible."  "Plenty  and  peace  breeds 
cowards,"  says  Imogen.  Though  Shakespeare  has 
no  sympathy  for  him  who  wantonly  "comes  to  open 
The  purple  testament  of  bleeding  war,"  especially 
of  civil  war,  the  state  as  Shakespeare  conceived  it 

1  Morton  Luce,  Handbook  of  Shakespeare's  Works,  400-401. 


150  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

is  martially  organized  to  maintain  the  rights  of 
peace.  He  tells  us  again  and  again  that  "the  wound 
of  peace  is  surety,  surety  secure."  It  is  not  sufficient 
that  his  England,  crowning  her  brows  with  fillets 
of  prosperity  and  indolence,  pour  mingled  wine  to 
Destiny.  She  shall  be  not  empty  of  defense  but 
provident  as  of  war  in  expectation  and,  with  the 
unquestioning  cooperation  of  her  subjects,  impreg- 
nable, "still  secure  And  confident  from  foreign  pur- 
poses." In  times  of  peace  such  as  our  modern  world 
recently  enjoyed  while  international  sanctions  ob- 
tained or  seemed  to  obtain,  Shakespeare's  contempt 
of  "less  happier  lands"  and  suspicion  of  their  "envy" 
might  savor  of  chauvinism.  But  in  his  day  the 
confidence  even  of  statesmen  in  international  pro- 
fessions of  amity  was  not  ordinarily  deeper  than  that 
of  his  Henry  V  or  his  Fauconbridge.  If  he  had 
heard  as  much  of  international  promises  as  we  have, 
and  could  judge  of  their  worth  in  certain  mouths 
now,  his  patriotism,  even  his  chauvinism  would,  I 
venture  to  say,  be  precisely  what  they  were.  In 
his  comparatively  unenlightened  condition  he  un- 
doubtedly held,  with  his  own  Lymoges,  "The  peace 
of  heaven  is  theirs  that  lift  their  swords  In  ... 
just  and  charitable  war."  As  for  checks  and  dis- 
asters, when  his  Agamemnon  reminds  the  allied 
princes,  abashed  because  "after  seven  years'  siege 
yet  Troy  walls  stand,"  that  deterrents  are  not  shame, 
it  is  Shakespeare  who  holds  that  they  "are  indeed 
nought  else" 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          151 

But  the  protractive  trials  of  great  Jove 

To  find  persistive  constancy  in  men; 

The  fineness  of  which  metal  is  not  found 

In  fortune's  love;  for  then  the  bold  and  coward, 

The  wise  and  fool,  the  artist  and  unread, 

The  hard  and  soft,  seem  all  affin'd  and  kin. 

But,  in  the  wind  and  tempest  of  her  frown, 

Distinction  with  a  loud  and  powerful  fan, 

Puffing  at  all,  winnows  the  light  away; 

And  what  hath  mass  and  matter  by  itself 

Lies  rich  in  virtue  and  unmingled. 

When  his  Fauconbridge,  the  sword  of  the  nation 
once  unsheathed,  rails  on  "Commodity"  that  would 
draw  the  realm  "From  a  resolved  and  honorable 
war  To  a  most  base  and  vile-concluded  peace," 
it  is  Shakespeare  that  rails.  We  may  be  sure  that, 
if  he  were  living  now,  he  would  be  repeating  with 
unction  the  words  of  his  wag  in  Measure  for  Measure, 
"Heaven  grant  us  its  peace,  but  not  the  King  of 
Hungary's!" 

In  his  political  instincts  Shakespeare  was,  accord- 
ing to  his  circumstance  and  insight,  a  meliorist, — 
not  a  theorist,  sentimentalist,  doctrinaire,  political 
or  journalistic  ostrich,  or  gelatinous  optimist.  He 
was  historically  and  morally  discipled:  not  a  blas- 
phemer of  God  as  pietistic  protagonist  of  selfishness 
and  lethargy.  He  was  not  provincially  blinded  to 
national  honor  and  obligation.  He  was  not  a  pacifist 
at  any  price.  To  Shakespeare  the  imperfectibility 
of  human  nature,  even  with  its  god-like  apprehen- 


152  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

sion,  is  self-evident.  He  looked  for  amelioration, — i 
but  not  through  national  oblivion  of  dignity  and 
right,  or  international  council  of  angelic  hierarchies. 
A  millennium  before  the  kingdom  of  God  is  fulfilled 
in  every  carnal  heart,  he  could  no  more  visualize  than 
does  any  sane  American  today. 

When,  in  writing  the  speech  of  Ulysses,  quoted 
in  part  above,  Shakespeare  departs  from  the  Pla- 
tonic tradition  and,  adapting  Chaucer  or  Rabelais 
or  Hooker,  or  any  one  of  the  numerous  sources  at 
his  command,  portrays  the  destruction  of  the  heavens 
and  the  earth  upon  the  neglect  of  law  and  degree,  he 
strays  at  times  from  the  human  analogy  of  the  tur- 
moil within  the  state  to  that  of  turmoil  between 
state  and  state,  nay,  even,  to  that  of  universal 
war: 

But  when  the  planets 
In  evil  mixture  to  disorder  wander, 
What  plagues  and  what  portents!    What  mutiny! 
What  raging  of  the  sea!  shaking  of  earth! 
Commotion  in  the  winds!     Frights,  changes,  horrors, 
Divert  and  crack,  rend  and  deracinate 
The  unity  and  married  calm  of  states 
Quite  from  their  fixure! 

May  no  lesson  for  a  world  of  nations  be  derived  from 
the  poetic  vision  of  what  results  when,  with  disre- 
gard of  justice  and  due  proportion,  a  planetary 
power  thus  plunges  into  strife  and  rends  "the  married 
calm  of  states?"  "Enterprise  is  sick."  "Peaceful 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          153 

commerce   from   dividable   shores"   loses   its   "au- 
thentic place:" 

The  bounded  waters, 

Should  lift  their  bosoms  higher  than  the  shores 
And  make     sop  of  all  this  solid  globe. 
Strength  should  be  lord  of  imbecility, 
And  the  rude  son  should  strike  his  father  dead. 
Force  should  be  right;  or  rather,  right  and  wrong, 
Between  whose  endless  jar  justice  resides, 
Should  lose  their  names,  and  so  should  justice  too. 
Then  everything  includes  itself  in  power, 
Power  into  will,  will  into  appetite; 
And  appetite,  an  universal  wolf, 
So  doubly  seconded  with  will  and  power, 
Must  make  perforce  an  universal  prey, 
And  last  eat  up  himself. 

In  the  last  ten  lines  the  poet  has  returned  to  the 
Platonic  tradition;  but  he  has  transformed  the 
"wolf"  of  Plato's  republic  into  a  Wolf  of  the  World. 
Though  in  Shakespeare's  day  international  law 
was  but  in  its  infancy,  for  Shakespeare  law  and 
humanity  rule  between  states,  and  over  states  the 
justice  of  God.  Henry  V,  questioning  whether  with 
right  and  conscience  he  may  make  a  claim  on  France 
that  if  denied  shall  entail  war,  conjures  his  arch- 
bishop to  unfold  justly  whether  there  is  a  right  in 
law  to  bar  him  from  the  claim:  "And  God  forbid  .  .  . 
that  you  should  fashion,  wrest  or  bow  your  reading" 
with  aught  "whose  right" 


154  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

Suits  not  in  native  colours  with  the  truth; 
For  God  doth  know  how  many  now  in  health 
Shall  drop  their  blood  in  approbation 
Of  what  your  reverence  shall  incite  us  to. 
Therefore  take  heed  how  you  impawn  our  person, 
How  you  awake  our  sleeping  sword  of  war. 
We  charge  you,  in  the  name  of  God,  take  heed; 
For  never  two  such  kingdoms  did  contend 
Without  much  fall  of  blood,  whose  guiltless  drops 
Are  every  one  a  woe,  a  sore  complaint 
'Gainst  him  whose  wrong  gives  edge  unto  the  swords 
That  make  such  waste  in  brief  mortality. 

Whether  the  historical  Henry  was  of  so  nice  con- 
science and  humanized  ideal,  such  responsibility  for 
guiltless  bloodshed,  matters  little.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  sources  to  show  that  he  was.  This  humanity 
whose  guardian  and  recording  angel  is  Law,  is  of 
the  poetic  heart  and  vision  of  Shakespeare,  as  is  all 
that  I  have  quoted  in  the  preceding  sections. 

VI 

Writing  of  the  Age  of  Elizabeth,  Professor  Raleigh 1 
has  recently  said  that  "the  political  beliefs  and 
habits  of  thought  which  seem  to  express  themselves 
in  Shakespeare's  plays  were  the  average  beliefs  of 
the  time.  .  .  .  The  English  historical  plays  treat 
the  clash  of  personalities,  and  exhibit  human  charac- 
ter tested  by  great  events,  but  hardly  touch  on 
political  theory.  There  is  nothing  to  wonder  at  in 
1  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  in  Shakespeare's  England,  I,  7-11. 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          155 

this;  authors  and  craftsmen  who  have  taken  human 
nature  for  their  province  commonly  stand  aloof  from 
the  politics  of  their  age.  But  the  fact  is  that  the 
political  issues  which  exercised  the  imagination  of 
the  ordinary  intelligent  man  in  Shakespeare's  day 
were  few  and  simple.  Indeed  it  might  truly  be  said 
that  there  was  only  one  live  question,  or  at  least 
there  was  only  one  question  so  real  and  insistent 
and  practical  that  it  overshadowed  all  the  rest. 
That  question  was  how  political  unity  and  power 
might  be  achieved  and  consolidated  against  the 
forces  of  anarchy,  against  domestic  treason  and 
foreign  aggression.  It  is  the  question  treated  by 
Machiavel  in  the  wonderful  little  book  which  domi- 
nated all  the  political  thought  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  But  even  if  the  problem  of  the  Prince 
had  never  been  mooted  in  literature,  it  would  have 
been  brought  home  to  the  minds  of  men  by  ex- 
perience. .  .  .  Under  Elizabeth  the  nation  longed 
for  security  and  peace;  the  maintenance  and  security 
of  the  powers  of  government  was  what  concerned 
the  people;  and  it  was  not  till  a  later  time  that  the 
question  of  the  balance  and  subdivision  of  political 
power  became  the  chief  problem  for  thinkers.  .  .  . 
That  the  sovereign  powers  of  the  State  might  be 
exercised  by  a  corporation  or  council  was  a  possi- 
bility which  had  to  be  considered  by  Machiavel, 
but  it  was  too  remote  from  English  thought  and 
habit  to  claim  attention  in  England.  ...  In  this 
matter  Shakespeare  is  simply  a  man  of  his  time. 


156  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

He  believed  in  rank  and  order  and  subordination. 
His  speeches  in  favor  of  these  things  have  nothing 
ironical  about  them,  and  are  never  answered  by 
equally  good  speeches  on  the  other  side.  Indeed 
they  may  all  be  paralleled  from  the  works  of  his 
contemporaries."  Of  "the  greatest  of  Shakespeare's 
dramatic  speeches  on  politics,"  that  of  Ulysses  rec- 
ommending order  and  subordination,  Sir  Walter 
remarks,  "Popular  orators,  from  Antony  to  jack 
Cade,  who  pander  to  the  restless  desires  of  the  mob, 
get  from  the  dramatist  no  such  measure  of  sympathy 
as  went  to  the  making  of  this  speech.  Shakespeare, 
it  is  sometimes  said,  never  takes  a  side.  It  is  true 
that  for  the  most  part  he  takes  his  stand  with  aver- 
age humanity,  and  is  hardly  ever  eccentric.  But 
he  had  a  meaning,  even  while  drama  was  his  trade; 
in  this  matter  of  politics  he  was  on  the  side  of  the 
government,  and  of  all  but  a  very  few  who  were 
proud  to  call  themselves  the  subjects  of  the  Queen." 
With  all  that  is  said  here  concerning  Shakespeare's 
belief  in  the  political  unity  and  power  of  the  state, 
in  rank  and  order  and  subordination,  I  am  of  course 
in  accord;  and  I  grant  that  his  utterances  in  this 
respect  may  be  paralleled  from  the  works  of  his 
contemporaries,  at  least  his  non-dramatic  contem- 
poraries. But  I  question  whether  he  was,  as  a 
subject,  always  "on  the  side  of  the  government," 
especially  when  the  Queen  sent  Essex  to  the  scaf- 
fold and  Southampton  to  the  Tower,  and  when  the 
"Patriots"  were  remonstrating  against  the  auto- 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          157 

cratic  methods  and  favoritism  of  James  in  1614. 
And  I  am  sure  that  not  all  the  political  beliefs  and 
habits  of  thought  of  Shakespeare  were  "the  average 
beliefs  of  the  time."  His  judgments  concerning 
autocracy,  concerning  political  unity  and  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  people,  concerning  the  recognition 
of  merit  in  government,  the  rights  of  the  individual, 
the  consciousness  of  justice  and  not  of  might  in  the 
administration  of  foreign  as  well  as  domestic  reKtions, 
are  differentiated  from,  and  are  above,  "the  average 
beliefs  of  the  time."  They  are  the  judgments  of  the 
wisest  and  most  conscientiously  patriotic  of  his 
contemporaries.  Especially  is  this  the  case  in  his 
treatment  of  the  "problem  of  the  Prince."  How 
far  in  this  respect  Shakespeare's  view  is  lifted  above 
"the  average  belief  of  the  time,"  even  in  England,  is 
luminously  expressed  by  a  writer  on  the  national 
ideal  in  English  poetry.  "There  can  be  little  doubt," 
says  Professor  de  Se'lincourt,1  "that  when  Shake- 
speare drew  the  portrait"  of  the  ideal  ruler  in  Henry 
V  "his  eye  was  firmly  fixed  in  reprobation  upon 
another  ideal  current  at  his  time,  which,  though 
generally  but  loosely  denounced  by  his  contempo- 
raries, was  exercising  an  indubitable  influence  upon 
statesmen  and  politicians.  That  policy  was  Machia- 
vellianism. Machiavelli's  Prince  had  been  the  text- 
book of  Thomas  Cromwell,  the  powerful  adviser 
of  Henry  VIII;  its  precepts  were  in  a  measure  fol- 
lowed by  both  Cecil  and  Leicester;  much  of  its 
1  English  Poets  and  the  National  Ideal,  pp.  30-33. 


158  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

teaching  was  advocated  later  by  Lord  Bacon.1 
Shakespeare's  delineation  of  Henry  V  becomes  more 
significant  when  we  turn  to  the  pages  of  Machia- 
velli  and  see  the  political  and  national  teaching  to 
which  Henry  is,  as  it  were,  the  counterblast.  The 
prime  object  with  which  Machiavelli  wrote  was  to 
effect  the  unification  of  Italy.  Hence  his  idea  of 
the  state  is  confined  to  its  military  and  political 
aspects;  he  ignores  culture,  private  comfort  and 
advantage,  and  all  religious  considerations.  .  .  . 
He  maintained  certain  propositions,  which  exer- 
cised a  fascination  over  his  Elizabethan  readers 
even  while  they  execrated  their  author,  and  par- 
ticularly over  those  who  were  themselves  empire- 
builders.  The  first  of  these  is  the  doctrine  that  the 
end  justifies  the  means;  the  second  that  Christianity 
does  not  encourage  that  idea  of  worldly  glory  which 
is  essential  to  the  welfare,  nay,  the  existence  of  a 
state,  whilst  Paganism  upholds  worldly  glory  as 
admirable.  ..."  According  to  Machiavelli  the 
prince  "must  not  be  guided  in  his  actions  by  the 
ordinary  moral  code.  He  must  love  his  country 
more  than  the  safety  of  his  soul.  He  must 
be  careless  of  the  individual  and  consider  only 
the  glory  of  the  community.  Consequently  we 
find  him  telling  us  with  care  and  exactitude,  when 
the  prince  should  break  his  word,  when  he  should 
betray  his  servant,  when  he  should  throw  over  an 

1  Who,  as  I  have  pointed  out  in  Appendix  D,  cut  his  coat  to 
suit  the  cloth. 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          159 

ally  he  is  pledged  to  support,  and  so  on;  and  particu- 
lar emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  use  of  fraud  to  achieve 
his  ends,  for  'it  behoves  the  ruler  to  be  a  fox  as  well 
as  a  lion.'  All  this  sounds  horrible  enough  in  cold 
blood,  but  no  student  of  history  could  affirm  that 
Machiavelli  was  introducing  new  ideas  into  state- 
craft. He  was  merely  reducing  to  a  science,  and 
setting  the  seal  of  political  philosophy  upon  methods 
which  have  always  played  a  large  part  in  the  policy 
of  kings  and  governments.  Machiavelli  was  the 
Treitschke  and  Bernhardi  of  the  Renaissance.  The 
novelty  consisted  in  the  codification,  as  it  were,  and 
the  justification  of  acts  which,  though  often  prac- 
tised, had  been  regarded  hitherto  as  morally  inde- 
fensible. It  was  a  clear  statement  of  the  superiority 
of  the  expedient  over  the  right,  a  definite  and  cynical 
denial  that  the  same  laws  of  morality  applied  to  the 
state  and  to  the  individual,  an  assertion  of  the  prin- 
ciple that  'necessity  knows  no  law.'  Shakespeare's 
answer  to  this  view  of  politics  is  found  in  all  his 
delineations  of  political  and  national  life.  .  .  . 
Shakespeare  was  no  professional  political  philoso- 
pher, he  was  a  practical  dramatist  and  a  poet,  whose 
first  interest  and  study  was  human  life  and  individual 
human  character.  But  like  all  Elizabethans  he  was 
a  patriot  who  loved  to  ponder  over  his  nation's 
history,  and  this  was  his  reading  of  history."  That 
his  reading  of  history  was  by  no  means  that  of  the 
average  man  but  that  of  the  ripest  thinkers  and 
patriots  of  his  day,  has,  I  trust,  already  been  shown. 


160  Shakespeare's  Views  of  the 

They  were  the  men  who,  fortifying  the  ramparts  of 
liberty  in  England,  laid  also  the  foundations  of 
liberty  in  America.  The  most  eminent  and  imme- 
diate of  their  masters  in  political  philosophy  was 
Richard  Hooker. 

Like  Hooker  and  his  disciple  Sandys,  like  Sandys 
and  Southampton  and  their  associates  in  the  Vir- 
ginia Council  and  in  parliament,  Shakespeare  re- 
pudiates autocracy  whether  by  divine  right  or  force. 
Like  them  he  repudiates  also  mob-rule,  communism, 
and  flat  democracy.  Hooker  justifies  other  kinds 
of  regiment  than  monarchy;  Sandys  goes  further, 
and  is  at  heart  opposed  to  government  by  mon- 
archy: Shakespeare  accepts  monarchy  ar,  the  estab- 
lished form  of  rule  in  England,  but  he  believes  in  its 
constitutional  limitation.  Hooker  and  Sandys  jus- 
tify the  deposition  of  the  unjust  king;  so  does  Shake- 
speare. Hooker  and  his  disciple  Sandys,  and 
Sandys's  associates  in  the  Virginia  Council  and  in 
Parliament,  insist  upon  government  by  consent  of 
the  governed.  Shakespeare  has  no  faith  in  the  fitness 
of  all  the  governed  to  govern  themselves;  but  he 
joins  hands  with  Hooker  and  the  patriots  of  the 
council  and  of  Parliament  in  the  ideal  of  a  govern- 
ment administered  for  the  people  by  their  fittest — 
not  by  an  aristocracy  of  birth  or  wealth  but  of  merit, 
an  aristodemocracy  of  noblesse  oblige.  In  govern- 
ment thus  representative,  struggling  in  his  day 
toward  realization,  Shakespeare  is  undoubtedly  a 
believer.  Like  the  thinkers — Hooker  and  Greville — 


Individual  in  Relation  to  the  State          161 

like  Sandys,  Southampton,  Pembroke,  Neville,  Gates, 
De  la  Warr,  Sackville,  Brooke,  Cavendish,  Selden, 
Digges,  Martin,  Hoskyns,  the  Ferrars,  and  many 
other  patriots  in  the  Council  of  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany, in  Parliament,  or  in  the  colony,  friends  of 
Shakespeare  or  friends  of  his  friends,  the  poet  be- 
lieved in  the  right  of  the  individual  to  liberty,  prop- 
erty and  the  pursuit  of  happiness;  in  equality  before 
the  law;  and  in  law  "all-binding,  keeping  form  and 
due  proportion;"  in  even-handed  justice;  in  duty 
to  the  common  order  in  society  and  state;  in  fra- 
ternity of  effort  and  patriotic  allegiance.  Like  the 
best  of  them  he  affirmed  right  conscience  as  arbiter 
of  internal  issues;  and  he  believed  in  a  God  over- 
ruling with  justice  the  affairs  of  all  nations. 

Let  us  now  consider  more  in  detail  the  points  of 
contact  between  Shakespeare's  utterance  and  that 
of  the  philosopher  of  the  liberal  movement. 


1 62  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 


CHAPTER  VII 

SHAKESPEARE   AND   HOOKER 

SHAKESPEARE'S  utterances  of  social  and  political 
creed,  as  quoted  in  the  preceding  chapter  and  as 
there  summed  up,  are  with  but  few  exceptions 
anticipated  by  Hooker  in  his  publication  of  1594. 
If  the  similarity  between  the  twain  were  merely  of 
thought,  and  but  once  or  twice  apparent  in  their 
works,  it  might  be  matter  of  coincidence,  explicable 
by  the  commonplace  of  tradition  and  of  literary 
and  conversational  currency:  Hooker  was  preaching 
at  the  Temple  from  1585  to  1591;  Shakespeare  was 
in  London  from  1587  on.  But  not  only  is  the  con- 
sentaneity recurrent  and,  so  far  as  Shakespeare  is 
concerned,  widely  distributed  through  his  poetic 
output,  the  similarity  is  of  figure  and  language  as 
well;  and  sometimes  it  is  in  marked  degree  arresting. 
Hooker's  book  was  deeply  studied  and  profoundly 
admired  by  Londoners  of  political  tendency  long 
after  his  death  in  1600.  Shakespeare  was  actively 
occupied  in  London  for  some  ten  years  later  than 
that. 

Of  the  parallelism  between  these  two  writers  let 
us  take  the  most  extended  and  diversified  example. 
It  is  that  which  I  have  already  in  part  quoted  as 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  163 

illustrating  Shakespeare's  insistence  upon  the  doc- 
trine of  "degree."  Says  Ulysses,  accounting  for 
the  Grecian  reverses  before  Troy  (Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida,  I,  iii,  78-137)1 

The  speciality  of  rule  hath  been  neglected; 
And,  look,  how  many  Grecian  tents  do  stand 

80    Hollow  upon  this  plain,  so  many  hollow  factions. 
When  that  the  general  is  not  like  the  hive 
To  whom  the  foragers  shall  all  repair, 
What  honey  is  expected  I    Degree  being  vizarded, 
The  unworthiest  shows  as  fairly  in  the  mask. 

85     The  heavens  themselves,  the  planets,  and  this  centre 
Observe  degree,  priority  and  place, 
Insisture,  course,  proportion,  season,  form, 
Office  and  custom,  in  all  line  of  order; 
And  therefore  is  the  glorious  planet  Sol 

90    In  noble  eminence  enthroned  and  sphered 
Amidst  the  other;  whose  medicinable  eye 
Corrects  the  ill  aspects  of  planets  evil, 
And  posts,  like  the  commandment  of  a  king, 
Sans  check  to  good  and  bad.    But  when  the  planets 

95     In  evil  mixture  to  disorder  wander, 

What  plagues  and  what  portents!  what  mutiny! 
What  raging  of  the  sea !  shaking  of  earth! 
Commotion  in  the  winds!    Frights,  changes,  horrors, 
Divert  and  crack,  rend  and  deracinate 
ico    The  unity  and  married  calm  of  states 

Quite  from  their  fixure!    O,  when  degree  is  shak'd, 
Which  is  the  ladder  to  all  high  designs, 
Then  enterprise  is  sick!    How  could  communities, 
Degrees  in  schools,  and  brotherhoods  in  cities, 


164  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

105     Peaceful  commerce  from  dividable  shores, 
The  primogenitive  and  due  of  birth, 
Prerogative  of  age,  crowns,  sceptres,  laurels, 
But  by  degree,  stand  in  authentic  place? 
Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string, 

no    And,  hark,  what  discord  follows!    Each  thing  meets 
In  mere  oppugnancy.    The  bounded  waters 
Should  lift  their  bosoms  higher  than  the  shores 
And  make  a  sop  of  all  this  solid  globe. 
Strength  should  be  lord  of  imbecility, 

115     And  the  rude  son  should  strike  his  father  dead. 
Force  should  be  right;  or  rather,  right  and  wrong, 
Between  whose  endless  jars  justice  resides, 
Should  lose  their  names,  and  so  should  justice  too. 
Then  everything  includes  itself  in  power, 

1 20    Power  into  will,  will  into  appetite; 
And  appetite,  an  universal  wolf, 
So  doubly  seconded  with  will  and  power, 
Must  make  perforce  an  universal  prey, 
And  last  eat  up  itself.    Great  Agamemnon, 

125    This  chaos,  when  degree  is  suffocate, 
Follows  the  choking. 
And  this  neglection  of  degree  is  it 
That  by  a  pace  goes  backward,  in  a  purpose 
It  hath  to  climb.    The  general's  disdain'd 

130    By  him  one  step  below,  he  by  the  next, 
That  next  by  him  beneath;  so  every  step, 
Exampled  by  the  first  pace  that  is  sick 
Of  this  superior,  grows  to  an  envious  fever 
Of  pale  and  bloodless  emulation; 

135     And  'tis  this  fever  that  keeps  Troy  on  foot, 
Not  her  own  sinews.   To  end  a  tale  of  length, 
Troy  in  our  weakness  stands,  not  in  her  strength. 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  165 

This  speech  was  written  at  the  earliest  in  1602, 
and  not  later  than  1609.  The  likeness  between 
Shakespeare's  thought  and  expression  in  the  lines 
italicized,  85  to  108,  and  a  passage  in  Hooker's 
Ecclesiastical  Polity,  which  I  shall  presently  quote, 
has  often  been  noted.  That,  and  further  resem- 
blances not  so  frequently  remarked  between  the 
tenor  of  Ulysses'  argument  as  a  whole  and  the  teach- 
ing of  Hooker  in  other  parts  of  the  Polity,  we 
shall  examine.  But,  to  be  fair,  we  should  clear 
the  field  of  borrowings  or  inspirations  for  which 
Shakespeare  is  indebted,  certainly  or  presumably, 
to  his  acquaintance  with  other  authors.  We  may 
then,  setting  Hooker's  writing  side  by  side  with 
the  residue,  judge  whether  resemblances  still  per- 
sist. 

The  speech  of  Ulysses  forms  part  of  the  heroic 
strand  of  Troilus  and  Cressida.  For  the  dramatic 
impulse  of  the  speech,  its  subject  "the  specialty  of 
rule,"  and  particularly  for  the  phraseology  of  the 
first  five  lines  (78-83)  and  the  figure  of  the  hive, 
Shakespeare  is  indebted  to  an  English  manipulation 
or  translation  of  the  second  book  of  the  Iliad — prob- 
ably to  Chapman's  translation  of  1598.  From  this 
also  he  seems  to  have  derived  the  suggestion  for 
the  argument  concerning  "degree,"  and  for  the 
analogy  between  "the  heavens  themselves"  with 
their  shining  dignitaries  and  the  course  of  human 
governments.  The  analogy  once  suggested,  Shake- 
speare remembers  that  there  is  an  elaboration  of  the 


1 66  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

same  thought  in  the  story  from  which  he  is  drawing 
the  love-strand  of  his  play,  namely  the  Troilus  and 
Criseyde  of  Chaucer.  To  that  passage  in  his  Chaucer 
he  turns;  and  then  perceiving  that  Chaucer,  who 
had  translated  the  De  Consolatione  Philosophiae 
of  Boethius  into  prose,  is  paraphrasing  from  his  own 
translation,  he  naturally  turns  back  to  the  transla- 
tion as  bound  up  in  the  same  folio  of  Chaucer's 
Works.  From  the  figure,  elaborated  by  both  Boe- 
thius and  Chaucer,  of  the  harmony  of  the  "country 
of  the  stars,"  of  the  bond  that  holds  the  "elements" 
of  our  earth  and  their  "peoples  joined  in  wholesome 
alliaunce"  under  the  governance  of  Love;  from  their 
figure  of  the  discord  that  would  ensue  if  "Love 
aught  let  his  bridle  go,"  we  may  be  confident,  if 
one  is  ever  justified  in  tracing  the  details  of  a  poet's 
fancy  to  a  definite  source,  that  Shakespeare  drew 
some  of  the  details  for  the  corresponding  part  of 
the  speech  of  Ulysses  I  should  say,  especially  such 
details  as  "the  unity  and  married  calm  of  states," 
line  loo,  and  lines  111-113 — 

The  bounded  waters 

Should  lift  their  bosoms  higher  than  the  shores 
And  make  a  sop  of  all  this  solid  globe. 

To  be  sure,  with  Boethius  and  Chaucer  the  bond 
that  holds  the  universe  together  is  Love,  whereas 
with  Shakespeare's  Ulysses  it  is  Law;  but  that  does 
not  affect  the  underlying  thought,  for  the  "love" 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  167 

of  Boethius  and  Chaucer  is  also  "law  and  wise  judge 
to  do  equity."  1 

There  is,  however,  much  in  the  discourse  of 
Ulysses  that  cannot  be  traced  to  materials  in  Chaucer, 
Boethius,  and  Homer,  or  to  any  contemporary  treat- 
ment of  the  story.  In  none  of  these  is  the  analogy 
between  the  political  order  and  that  of  the  celestial 
spheres  developed  as  here;  in  none,  the  theory  of  gov- 
ernment by  supreme  authority  and  degree.  In  none 
is  the  wreck  of  the  planetary  system  described;  and 
in  none  do  we  find  the  psychology  of  the  discourse. 

The  doctrine  of  the  harmonious  order  of  the  uni- 
verse, sphere  within  sphere,  is  of  course  of  the 
Pythagorean  tradition,  as  handed  down  by  Plato 
in  the  tenth  book  of  the  Republic,  and  as  reduced 
to  the  geocentric  system  of  astronomy  by  Ptolemy. 
The  Ptolemaic  system  was  still  generally  accepted 
in  Shakespeare's  time;  and  to  such  teaching  may 
be  attributed  the  poet's  description  of  Sol  as  a  planet 
whose  sphere — or  orbit — is  midway  between  the 
others.  As  for  the  wreck  of  the  universe,  the  fancy 
had  been  elaborated  with  jocose  application  by 
Rabelais,  something  of  whose  work  was  known  to 
Shakespeare.2  But  from  no  such  source  does  he 
derive  the  precise  materials  for  the  poetic  analogy 
drawn  by  Ulysses  of  celestial  and  political  law,  still 
less  the  sequence  of  the  discourse. 

1  For  this  indebtedness  to  Homer,  Boethius,  Chaucer,  see 
Appendix  E. 

1  See  below,  Appendix  F. 


1 68  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

The  political  philosophy  resembles  that  with  which 
writers  of  the  Italian  renaissance  had  familiarized 
Englishmen  from  the  reign  of  Henry  VII  down. 
It  is  of  Platonic-Aristotelian  provenience  and  is 
plainly  set  forth  in  an  educational  treatise  written 
by  Sir  Thomas  Elyot  in  1531.  From  chapters  one 
and  two  of  the  first  book  of  The  Governour,  Shake- 
speare could  have  derived  hints  for  the  political 
argument  advanced  by  his  Ulysses,  for  illustration, 
and  even  for  phraseology.  Elyot  here  touches  upon 
the  analogy  of  the  heavenly  spheres,  emphasizes 
order,  degree,  and  justice  in  governance,  the  "chaos" 
that  ensues  upon  the  disregard  of  them,  and  the 
destruction  of  the  agent  who  brings  about  the  dis- 
solution; and  he  elaborates  the  economy  of  the  bee. 
We  must,  however,  remember  that  save  the  em- 
phasis upon  degree,  there  is  little  to  Shakespeare's 
purpose  in  Elyot  that  Shakespeare  had  not  already 
under  his  hand  in  Chaucer,  Boethius,  and  the  Iliad; 
that  Elyot's  is  but  one  of  the  numerous  expositions 
of  the  political  doctrine  accessible  to  the  poet;  and 
that  the  figures  and  phrases  were  the  flotsam  of 
conversation  as  well  as  of  political  literature  in 
Shakespeare's  day.1 

Homer  and  Chaucer,  surely, — Boethius,  prob- 
ably,— Elyot,  possibly, — have  suggested  now  one  and 
now  another  phase  of  the  thought,  imagery,  and 
diction,  but  in  none  are  to  be  found  the  develop- 
ment of  thought,  the  elaboration  and  application 
1  See  Appendix  G. 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  169 

of  imagery,  the  psychology  which  characterize  the 
discourse  of  Ulysses  as  a  whole.  For  these  the  most 
succinct  and  satisfactory  contemporary  parallelism 
is  presented  in  a  few  closely  sequent  pages  of  Hooker's 
Ecclesiastical  Polity.  To  the  resemblance  between 
the  part  about  the  celestial  spheres  and  a  paragraph 
in  Hooker  upon  law,  "as  at  once  the  rule  of  moral  ac- 
tion and  government,  and  the  rule  of  moral  agents," 
the  Shakespearian  editor,  Verplanck,  called  atten- 
tion some  seventy  years  ago.  "It  is  possible,"  says 
he,  "that  the  poet  had  this  thought  suggested  by 
an  analogous  passage,  of  equal  eloquence,  in  his  con- 
temporary Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  of  which 
the  first  parts  were  published  in  1594.  If  it  were 
not,  it  was  no  very  strange  coincidence  between  the 
thoughts  of  men  of  large  and  excursive  minds,  at 
once  poetical  and  philosophical,  applied  to  the  most 
widely  differing  subjects." 

The  passage  in  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity  (Bk.  I, 
iii,  2)  runs  as  follows:  "God's  commanding  those 
things  to  be  which  are,  and  to  be  in  such  sort  as  they 
are,  to  keep  that  tenure  and  course  which  they  do, 
importeth  the  establishment  of  nature's  law.  .  .  . 
And  as  it  cometh  to  pass  in  a  kingdom  rightly  ordered, 
that  after  a  law  is  once  published,  it  presently  takes 
effect  far  and  wide,  all  states  framing  themselves  there- 
unto, even  so  let  us  think  it  fareth  in  the  natural 
course  of  the  world;  since  the  time  that  God  did 
first  proclaim  the  edicts  of  his  law  upon  it,  heaven 
and  earth  have  hearkened  unto  his  voice,  and  their 


170  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

labour  hath  been  to  do  his  will:  He  'made  a  law  for 
the  rain;'  He  gave  his  'decree  unto  the  sea,  that  the 
waters  should  not  pass  his  commandment.''  Now,  if 
nature  should  intermit  her  course,  and  leave  altogether 
though  it  were  but  for  a  while  the  observation  of  her 
own  laws;  if  those  principal  and  mother  elements 
of  the  world,  whereof  all  things  in  this  lower  world 
are  made,  should  lose  the  qualities  which  now  they 
have;  if  the  frame  of  that  heavenly  arch  erected  over 
our  heads  should  loosen  and  dissolve  itself;  if  celestial 
spheres  should  forget  their  wonted  motions,  and  by 
irregular  volubility  turn  themselves  any  way  as  it  might 
happen;  if  the  prince  of  the  lights  of  heaven,  which 
now  as  a  giant  doth  run  his  unwearied  course,  should 
as  it  were  through  a  languishing  faintness  begin  to 
stand  and  to  rest  himself;  if  the  moon  should  wander 
from  her  beaten  way,  the  times  and  seasons  of  the 
year  blend  themselves  by  disordered  and  confused 
mixture,  the  winds  breathe  out  their  last  gasp,  the  earth 
be  defeated  by  heavenly  influence,  the  fruits  of  the 
earth  pine  away  as  children  at  the  withered  breasts  of 
their  mother  no  longer  able  to  yield  them  relief:  what 
would  become  of  man  himself,  whom  these  things 
now  do  all  serve?  See  we  not  plainly  that  obedience 
of  creatures  unto  the  law  of  nature  is  the  stay  of  the 
whole  world?"  l 

I  have  italicized  for  the  convenience  of  the  reader 
the  more   suggestive   parallelisms   in   thought   and 

1  Everyman  edition,  156-7. 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  171 

phrase  between  this  passage  and  lines  85-98  of  the 
speech  of  Ulysses. 

We  cannot  but  agree  with  Verplanck  that  in 
thought  and  eloquence  Shakespeare  is  "singularly 
like"  Hooker.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  both  the 
Elizabethans  had  been  reading  Boethius  De  Con- 
solatione,  and  that  for  both  the  initial  suggestion 
of  the  figure  of  celestial  harmony  and  discord  pro- 
ceeded from  that  author.  Hooker,  however,  had 
used  not  the  Chaucerian  translation  of  Boethius 
but  the  original.  In  Book  I,  ii,  6,  of  the  Polity,1 
just  two  pages  before  Hooker  launches  upon  his 
poetic  analogy,  he  quotes  directly  from  Boethius 
the  Latin  introduction  to  the  exposition  of  "the 
ordinance  which  moveth  the  heaven  and  the  stars" 
and  of  the  way  in  which,  through  Love,  "the  high 
thunderer  .  .  .  maketh  interchangeable  the  per- 
durable courses;"  and  this  Latin  Hooker  translates 
in  terms  not  used  by  Chaucer.2  In  many  other 
parts  of  the  first  book  of  the  Polity  Hooker's  thought 
follows  that  of  Boethius;  and  though  both  Hooker 
and  Boethius  make  direct  use  of  Aristotle's  Ethics, 
in  some  instances  it  is  evidently  the  language  of 
Boethius  and  not  of  Aristotle  that  Hooker  para- 
phrases. At  first  blush,  therefore,  one  is  inclined  to 
explain  the  singular  similarity  between  Shakespeare 
and  Hooker  in  this  spot  by  referring  it  altogether 
to  the  Boethian  source.  But  upon  further  examina- 

1  Everyman  edition,  153-4. 

2  See  Appendix  H. 


172  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

tion  it  appears  that,  though  the  initial  impulse  to 
the  employment  of  the  celestial  analogy  is  Boethian, 
the  resemblance  between  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 
in  the  elaboration  of  it,  in  the  description  of  the 
wreck  of  the  universe,  and  in  the  subsequent  dis- 
course, cannot  be  explained  in  this  way. 

For  his  description  of  the  wreck  Hooker  makes 
use  of  a  source  not  consulted  by  Boethius  and  not 
known  to  Shakespeare,  a  Latin  treatise  of  Arnobius, 
written  about  303  A.  D.  And  when  we  deduct  from 
Shakespeare's  development  of  the  analogy  as  a 
whole  the  Chaucerian-Boethian  parallelisms  al- 
ready noted,  namely,  "the  bounded  waters,"  "a 
sop  of  all  this  solid  globe,"  etc.,  we  find  in  what 
remains — "the  heavens  themselves,  the  planets, 
and  this  centre  observe  .  .  .  insisture,  course  .  .  . 
season  ...  in  all  line  of  order;"  "in  evil  mixture  to 
disorder  wander;"  "commotion  in  the  winds," 
"what  plagues  and  what  portents,"  and  various 
other  items — a  striking  similarity  with  those  sen- 
tences in  Hooker  which  Hooker  has  almost  literally 
translated  from  Arnobius.1  Even  though  Shake- 
speare's brain  might  readily  have  furnished  the 
words  and  phrases  to  his  Ulysses,  this  continuance 
of  similarity  with  Hooker  alone  justifies  further 
pursuit  of  the  investigation. 

Verplanck,  judging  merely  from  what  lay  before 
him,  is  of  the  same  opinion.  "Hooker's  subsequent 
remarks,"  he  says,  "singularly  remind  the  reader  of 
1  See  Appendix  H. 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  173 

the  more  rapid  view  given  by  the  poet  of  'the  unity 
and  married  calm  of  state'  and  the  ills  by  which  it  is 
disturbed."  Let  us  quote  again  "the  more  rapid 
view." 

Frights,  changes,  horrors 
Divert  and  crack,  rend  and  deracinate 

loo     The  unity  and  married  calm  of  states 

Quite  from  their  fixure!     0,  when  degree  is  shak'd, 
Which  is  the  ladder  to  all  high  designs, 
Then  enterprise  is  sick!    How  could  communities, 
Degrees  in  schools,  and  brotherhoods  in  cities, 

105     Peaceful  commerce  from  dividable  shores , 
The  primogenitive  and  due  of  birth, 
Prerogative  of  age,  crowns,  sceptres,  laurels, 
But  by  degree,  stand  in  authentic  place? 
Take  but  degree  away,  untune  that  string, 

no    And,  hark,  what  discord  follows! 

The  reader  is  already  aware,  as  Verplanck  was  not, 
that  "the  unity  and  married  calm  of  states"  had 
its  origin,  almost  its  verbal  expression,  in  Chaucer 
and  Boethius.  But  Chaucer  and  Boethius  say 
nothing  about  the  destruction  of  "peaceful  com- 
merce" that  follows  upon  the  disturbance  of  unity 
and  calm.  Hooker  and  Shakespeare  do. 

In  the  paragraph  already  quoted  from  the  Polity, 
when  a  "kingdom  is  rightly  ordered  .  .  .  after  a 
law  is  once  published  it  presently  takes  effect  far 
and  wide,  all  states  framing  themselves  thereunto." 
A  few  pages  further  on  (I,  x,  12-13)  Hooker  proceeds 
to  the  consideration  of  the  Law  of  Nations — "which 


174  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

toucheth  all  such  several  bodies  politic,  so  far  forth  as 
one  of  them  hath  public  commerce  with  another."  We 
are  not  satisfied,  says  he,  with  the  mutual  participa- 
tion of  civil  society,  .  .  .  "but  we  covet  to  have  a  kind 
of  society  and  fellowship  even  with  all  mankind;  .  .  . 
yea,  to  be  in  league  of  amity  with  them:  and  this  not 
only  for  traffick's  sake,  or  to  the  end  that  when  many 
are  confederated  each  may  make  the  other  more 
strong,"  but  for  knowledge  sake.  .  .  .  But,  as  the 
laws  of  reason  have  not  been  "sufficient  to  direct 
each  particular  person  in  all  his  affairs  and  duties;" 
and,  as  the  accessory  "laws  of  polity  and  regi- 
ment .  .  .  are  not  able  now  to  serve,  when  men's 
iniquity  is  so  hardly  restrained  within  any  tolerable 
bounds:  in  like  manner,  the  national  laws  of  natural 
commerce  between  societies  of  that  former  and  better 
quality  might  have  been  other  than  now,  when  nations 
are  so  prone  to  offer  violence,  injury  and  wrong.  .  .  . 
The  strength  and  virtue  of  that  law  is  such  that  no 
particular  nation  can  lawfully  prejudice  the  same 
by  any  their  several  laws  and  ordinances."  * 

If  Shakespeare,  in  his  substitution  of  "specialty 
of  rule"  and  "degree"  for  the  Chaucerian  and 
Boethian  Love,  was  in  any  way  indebted  to  Hooker's 
exposition  of  natural  law,  to  his  imagery  of  the 
"celestial  spheres"  forgetting  "their  wonted  mo- 
tions," to  his  phraseology,  of  "tenure  and  course," 
order,  "season,"  and  for  the  striking  detail  of  the 
wreck — which  Hooker  derives  from  Arnobius, — if 
1  Polity,  156, 198, 199. 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  175 

he  is  indebted  to  Hooker  for  the  exposition  of  laws 
in  the  physical  world,  is  it  unlikely  that  he  should 
be  impressed  also  by  Hooker's  exposition  of  law 
in  the  social,  political,  and  international  world,  and 
so  pass  to  illustration  by  detail  in  somewhat  similar 
strain?  Let  us  take  the  steps  in  order  and  compare. 

Hooker,  in  the  lines  following  his  imaginary  wreck 
of  the  universe,  points  the  lesson  not  with  a  common- 
place drawn  from  the  Pythagorean  and  Platonic 
harmony  of  the  spheres,  but  with  the  figure  of  the 
"untuned  string:"  "See  we  not  plainly  that  obedi- 
ence of  creatures  unto  the  law  of  nature  is  the  stay  of 
the  whole  world?  Notwithstanding  with  nature  it 
cometh  sometimes  to  pass  as  with  art  .  .  .  He 
that  striketh  an  instrument  with  skill  may  cause 
notwithstanding  a  very  unpleasant  sound,  if  the  string 
whereon  he  striketh  be  uncapable  of  harmony."  * 
So,  also,  Shakespeare  in  lines  109-10,  but  substituting 
degree  among  moral  agents  for  obedience  to  the 
law  of  nature:  "Take  but  degree  away,  Untune  that 
string,  And,  hark,  what  discord  follows." 

Hooker  proceeds  immediately  to  the  importance 
of  form,  kind,  order,  degree  in  the  fulfilment  of  law 
not  only  by  natural  agents  as  "sociable  parts  united 
into  one  body,"  but  by  voluntary  as  well — "Things 
natural  .  .  .  observe  their  certain  laws  "when  "they 
keep  those  forms  which  give  them  their  being  .  .  . 
seeing  the  kinds  of  their  operations  are  both  con- 
stantly and  exactly  framed  according  to  the  several 
1  Polity,  158. 


176  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

ends  for  which  they  serve.  .  .  .  The  natural  gen- 
eration l  and  process  of  all  things  receiveth  order 
of  proceeding  from  the  settled  stability  of  divine 
understanding.  This  appointeth  unto  them  their 
kinds  of  working.  .  .  .  That  law,  the  performance 
whereof  we  behold  in  things  natural,  is  as  it  were  an 
authentical  or  an  original  draught  in  the  bosom  of 
God  himself."  The  second  kind  of  law  is  of  volun- 
tary agents  in  societies.  "Consider  the  angels  of 
God  associated,  and  their  law  is  that  which  dis- 
poseth  them  as  an  army,  one  in  order  and  degree 
above  another."  So  also  with  men,  who  are  "next  in 
degree"  to  the  angels,  and  "grow  by  degrees  till 
they  come  at  length  to  be  even  as  the  angels  them- 
selves are"  and  who  have  their  "laws  politic,  or- 
dained for  external  order  and  regiment  .  .  .  unto 
the  common  good  for  which  societies  are  instituted." 
Hooker  then  passes,  as  in  the  citation  made  above,  to 
the  third  kind  of  law  as  touching  "all  states,"  the 
desire  for  "league  of  amity"  between  them,  for 
confederation  of  strength  and  for  "traffick's  sake," 
and  to  the  baneful  effect  upon  "national  laws  of 
natural  commerce"  when  "nations  .  .  .  offer  vio- 
lence, injury,  and  wrong."  2  In  like  manner  but  in 
slightly  altered  sequence  Shakespeare  passes  in 

*The  passage  beginning  "The  natural  generation"  and  end- 
ing "in  the  bosom  of  God  himself"  is  a  close  paraphrase  of 
Boethius  IV,  Prose  vi,  45-55;  but  not  as  translated  by  Chaucer; 
nor  did  Chaucer  take  it  over  in  his  Troilus  and  Criseyde. 

*  Polity,  159,  160,  163,  164,  166,  188,  198. 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  177 

lines  98  to  in  from  the  natural  to  the  social:  "The 
unity  and  married  calm  of  states;"  the  deracination 
"from  their  fixure;"  the  shaking  of  degree  "which 
is  the  ladder  to  all  high  designs;"  "the  communities" 
and  "brotherhoods  in  cities,"  and  "peaceful  com- 
merce from  dividable  shores,"  losing  their  "authen- 
tic place;"  the  untuned  string,  the  discord. 

Here  again  the  resemblance  may  be  accounted  for 
as  the  result  of  natural  procedure  in  logical  and 
imaginative  discourse,  as  pursued  by  men  of  the 
same  literary  atmosphere.  But  the  joint  evidence 
of  similarity  in  general  sequence  and  specific  detail 
begins  to  assume  a  cumulative  character  pointing 
to  more  than  coincidence. 

Still  other  details  call  for  consideration.  In  line 
107,  above — "Prerogative  of  age,  crowns,  scep- 
tres"— would  naturally  occur  to  Ulysses;  but  I 
have  frequently  wondered  why,  in  this  enumeration 
of  the  disasters  attending  disregard  of  degree  in  its 
broader  significance,  Ulysses  should  have  bothered 
his  head — poetically,  logically,  or  historically — about 
the  fate  of  "  degrees  in  schools."  His  creator  may  be 
pardoned  for  recollecting  that  there  are  such  things 
as  collegiate  degrees;  but  the  item  seems  far-fetched, 
and  ridiculously  specific.  Is  it  mere  coincidence 
that  Hooker,  too,  speaks  not  only  of  collegiate  com- 
munities and  degrees,  but  of  the  prerogative  of 
seniority  and  the  sceptre  of  discipline?  That  toward 
the  end  of  his  Preface,  only  three  sections  before 
the  illustration  of  the  "kingdom  rightly  ordered," 


178  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

he  should  have  said:  "Therefore  I  wish  that  your- 
selves [Puritans  objecting  to  permanent  ranks 
among  ministers]  did  well  consider  how  opposite 
some  of  your  positions  are  unto  the  state  of  collegiate 
societies,  whereon  the  two  universities  consist. 
Those  degrees  which  their  statutes  bind  them  to  take  are 
by  your  laws  taken  away."  ?  That  he  should  have 
made  a  special  point  of  the  inconvenience  likely  to 
be  entailed  upon  the  "seniors"  of  those  universities 
by  the  abolition  of  collegiate  orders?  and  that  he 
should  have  emphasized,  at  the  end  of  the  section, 
the  ticklish  position  of  "superiors  that  will  not  have 
the  sceptre  of  discipline  to  rule  over  them;"  and  the 
"perilous  consequence  ...  if  the  present  state 
of  the  highest  governor  placed  over  us,  if  the  quality 
and  disposition  of  our  nobles,  if  the  orders  and  laws 
of  our  famous  universities"  be  upset?  *  If  the  re- 
semblances already  suggested  between  this  speech 
of  Ulysses  and  the  first  book  of  the  Polity  are  not  a 
mere  matter  of  coincidence  we  must  credit  Shake- 
speare with  the  habit  of  reading  the  preface  of  a 
book  as  well  as  the  book  itself. 

At  first  glance  the  "singular"  similarity  to  which 
Verplanck  has  given  us  the  clue  seems  to  cease  at 
this  point.  In  the  continuation  of  the  speech  of 
Ulysses,  the  first  four  lines  find  their  immediate 
motivation  in  Boethius  and  Chaucer — 

no  Each  thing  meets 

In  mere  oppugnancy.    The  bounded  waters 
1  Polity,  129,  130,  142. 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  179 

Should  lift  their  bosoms  higher  than  the  shores 
And  make  a  sop  of  all  this  solid  globe. 

"All  that  now  loveth  a-sonder  sholde  lepe"  and  the 
sea  should  "drench  earth,"  says  Chaucer.  "Alle 
thinges  that  now  loven  hem  to-gederes  wolden 
maken  a  bataile  continuely,"  says  Boethius;  and 
the  sea  would  "streche  his  boundes  up-on  the  erthes." 
And  the  next  five  lines — 

Strength  should  be  lord  of  imbecility, 
115     And  the  rude  son  should  strike  his  father  dead. 
Force  should  be  right;  or  rather  right  and  wrong, 
Between  whose  endless  jar  justice  resides, 
Should  lose  their  names,  and  so  should  justice  too. 

may  be  an  elaboration  of  the  thought  presented  in 
the  same  sources.  "Amonges  thise  thinges  sitteth 
the  heye  maker,  king  and  lord,  .  .  .  lawe  and  wys 
juge,  to  don  equitee,"  says  Boethius.1  But  the 
"right  and  wrong"  no  longer  "judged  rightly"  by 
"the  faculty  of  reason,"  and  "the  Laws  of  well- 
doing which  are  the  dictates  of  Reason"  are  also 
definitely  emphasized  in  Hooker's  sequence  of  dis- 
cussion. 

For  the  succeeding  depiction  of  moral  chaos,  how- 
ever, and  for  the  psychology  underlying,  we  find  no 
inspiration  in  Boethius  and  Chaucer.  Ulysses 
prognosticates: 

Then  everything  includes  itself  in  power, 
1 2O  Power  into  will,  will  into  appetite; 

1  See  Appendix  E. 


i8o  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

And  appetite,  an  universal  wolf, 
So  doubly  seconded  with  will  and  power, 
Must  make  perforce  an  universal  prey, 
And  last  eat  up  himself. 

It  has  been  suggested  that  for  the  thought  not  only 
of  the  whole  section  (lines  114-124),  but  of  the  pre- 
ceding— the  disregard  of  "degrees  in  schools,"  and 
"prerogative  of  age"  the  metaphor  of  musical  dis- 
cord— and  of  what  follows  about  the  "neglection  of 
degree.  .  .  .  That  by  a  pace  goes  backward,  in  a 
purpose  It  hath  to  climb,"  Shakespeare  has  had  re- 
course to  Plato's  account  in  the  Republic  of  the  evils 
of  democracy  and  the  tyranny  that  supervenes. 
Some  of  the  parallelisms  in.  language  as  well  as 
thought  are,  indeed,  not  insignificant.  The  Re- 
public, moreover,  was  accessible  in  Latin  and  French, 
in  continental  disquisitions,  and  in  an  English  ex- 
position, in  Shakespeare's  time.  Plato's  theory  of 
democracy  and  its  dangers  was  common  property 
through  various  English  treatises  as  well,  and  had 
become  in  political  conversation  a  platitude.  Simi- 
larly accessible  were  his  psychology — of  appetite, 
the  spirited  element,  the  reason.  And  so,  too,  was 
Aristotle's  restatement  of  it  with  the  emphasis  upon 
will;  and  the  ethics  of  both  philosophers  in  which 
justice  appears  as  the  harmonizer  of  faculties  political 
as  well  as  individual.1 

If,  however,  Shakespeare  was  deriving  not  merely 

1  See  Appendix  I. 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  181 

from  the  material  of  every-day  discourse,  but  from 
the  printed  page,  no  more  accessible,  comprehensive, 
or  probable  source  for  all  this  can  be  surmised  than 
the  first  book  of  the  Polity.  The  resemblance  be- 
tween the  two  writers  in  regard  to  ethics  and  psy- 
chology is  no  less  striking  than  in  the  sequence  and 
details  already  mentioned.  Continuing  the  discus- 
sion of  form,  kind,  order,  degree  among  natural 
agents,  angels  and  men,  Hooker,  who  frequently 
cites  Plato  and  Aristotle,  says  (I,  vi,  5) — "Education 
and  instruction  are  the  means  .  .  .  to  make  our 
natural  faculty  of  reason  both  the  better  and  the  sooner 
able  to  judge  rightly  between  truth  and  error,  good  and 
evil.  ...  It  is  in  our  power"  he  continues,  "to 
leave  the  things  we  do  undone.  .  .  .  Choice  there 
is  not,  unless  the  thing  which  we  take  be  so  in  our 
power  that  we  might  have  refused  and  left  it.  ... 
To  choose  is  to  will  one  thing  before  another.  And 
to  will  is  to  bend  our  souls  to  the  having  or  doing  of 
[i.  e.,  the  power  over]  that  which  they  see  to  be  good. 
Goodness  is  seen  with  the  eye  of  the  understanding. 
And  the  light  of  that  eye  is  reason.  So  that  two 
principal  fountains  there  are  of  action,  knowledge 
and  will."  Knowledge  is  of  "good  and  evil"  (right 
and  wrong);  will  makes  the  "choice."  "Will  .  .  . 
differeth  greatly  from  that  inferior  natural  desire 
which  we  call  Appetite.  The  object  of  Appetite  is 
whatsoever  sensible  good  may  be  wished  for;  the  object 
of  Will  is  that  good  which  Reason  doth  lead  us  to 
seek.  .  .  .  Appetite  is  the  WiWs  solicitor,  and  the 


1 82  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

Will  is  Appetite's  controller;  .  .  .  neither  is  any 
other  desire  termed  properly  Will,  but  that  where 
Reason  and  Understanding,  or  the  show  of  Reason, 
prescribeth  the  thing  desired."  Where  "that  good 
which  is  sensible  provoketh  Appetite,  and  Appetite 
causeth  action.  Reason  being  never  called  to  coun- 
sel, .  .  .  such  actions  are"  no  longer  "to  be  counted 
voluntary.  .  .  .  Reason  is  the  director  of  man's  Will 
by  discovering  in  action  [i.  e.,  in  the  having  or  doing 
that  constitutes  Power]  what  is  good.  For  the 
Laws  of  well-doing  are  the  dictates  of  Reason."  In 
other  words  where  reason  is  disregarded,  law  ceases 
to  exist;  and  where  law,  ruling  through  degree  of 
kind  and  function,  as  Hooker  expounds,  has  ceased 
to  exist,  the  order  of  society  is  turned  topsy-turvy. 
For  laws  politic  presume  "man  to  be  in  regard  of  his 
depraved  mind  little  better  than  a  wild  beast."  *  This 
is  the  "wolf"  of  Ulysses;  and  the  climax  reached  by 
Ulysses  is  that  of  Hooker:  by  progressive  absorp- 
tion— power  swallowing  everything,  will  swallowing 
power,  appetite  swallowing  will — all  is  included 
"  into  appetite.  And  appetite,  an  universal  wolf.  .  .  . 
Must  make  perforce  an  universal  prey,  And  last  eat 
up  himself." 

Let  us  now  consider  the  resemblance  in  political 
doctrine  between  Shakespeare  and  Hooker.  In  the 
closing  lines  of  his  discourse  (124-137)  Ulysses  re- 
turns to  the  particular  contention,  the  importance 

1  Polity,  168,  169,  170,  171,  188. 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  183 

of  degree  in  a  government  by  law,  the  specialty  of 
rule  with  which  he  opened — 

Great  Agamemnon, 

125  This  chaos,  when  degree  is  suffocate, 

Follows  the  choking;  etc. 

The  classical  doctrine  of  degree  was  no  less  material 
of  contemporary  conversation  for  Shakespeare  than 
the  ethics  and  psychology  of  which  I  have  spoken. 
But  if  Shakespeare  had  recourse  to  printed  authority, 
Hooker's  page  which  is  saturated  with  Aristotle, 
as  is  Aristotle's  with  Plato,  would  answer  his  pur- 
pose as  well  as  the  originals  or  translations  of  them; 
or  as  well  as  the  writings  of  any  by  whom  the  doc- 
trine had  been  popularized  and  applied  to  early 
Christian,  mediaeval,  or  modern  conditions — St. 
Augustine,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Castiglione,  Sir 
Thomas  Elyot.  Better  in  fact,  for  Shakespeare's 
conception  of  degree  is  not,  like  Plato's,  Aristotle's, 
the  Italians',  and  Elyot's,  based  upon  the  tradition 
of  aristocratic  caste,  but,  like  that  of  Hooker,  upon 
merit  and  function. 

Shakespeare  does  not,  as  some  have  thought,  sub- 
stitute degree — "the  specialty  of  rule" — for  law. 
He  conceives  of  law  and  degree  precisely  as  does 
Hooker.  Law  is  the  rule  itself  by  which  nature, 
society  and  states  are  held  in  order.  Degree  is  the 
special  instrumentality  by  means  of  which  that  rule 
is  made  effective.  "That  which  doth  assign  unto 
each  thing  the  kind,  that  which  doth  moderate  the 


184  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

force  and  power,  that  which  doth  appoint  the  form 
and  measure,  of  working,  the  same  we  term  a  Law," 
says  Hooker.  "We  term  any  kind  of  rule  or  canon, 
whereby  actions  are  framed  a  law."  l  Degree,  or 
"the  specialty  of  rule,"  according  to  Hooker,  is  the 
series  of  "kinds"  or  "orders" — in  nature,  human 
society,  and  among  the  angels — to  which  law  has 
assigned  special  functions  for  the  harmonious  ful- 
filment of  its  purpose.  The  series  implies  grades  of 
relative  superiority;  but  the  function  of  each  grade 
is  relative  to  the  capacity  of  the  agents  employed. 
And  with  Hooker,  as  we  have  seen,  capacity  of 
reason  and  of  judgment  develops  with  education. 
Degree,  for  Shakespeare  as  for  Hooker,  is  that  by 
means  of  which  law  distributes  power  and  measure 
to  the  workings  of  nature  and  of  society.  Law  rules 
the  machine;  degree  is  the  series  of  cogs:  the  special 
instrumentality  of  rule.  "Consider  the  angels," 
Hooker  poetically  exclaims,  illustrating  his  doctrine 
of  degree  by  the  "corporation"  of  those  who  "have 
not  disdained  to  profess  themselves  our  'fellow- 
servants:'"  "Consider  the  angels  associated,  and 
their  law  is  that  which  disposeth  them  as  an  army, 
one  in  order  and  degree  above  another."  And,  three 
pages  further  down,  "Men,  if  we  view  them  in  their 
spring,  are  at  the  first  without  understanding  or 

1  Polity,  150,  154:  the  pages  immediately  preceding  those  in 
which  Shakespeare  would  find  the  analogy  of  the  celestial  spheres, 
employed  by  Ulysses  in  his  exemplification  of  "the  specialty  of 
rule." 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  185 

knowledge  at  all.  Nevertheless  from  this  utter 
vacuity  they  grow  by  degrees,  till  they  come  at 
length  to  be  even  as  the  angels  themselves  are." 
And,  a  little  later:  "To  devise  laws  which  all  men 
shall  be  forced  to  obey  none  but  wise  men  shall  be 
admitted.  Laws  are  matters  of  principal  conse- 
quence; men  of  common  capacity  and  but  ordinary 
judgment  are  not  able  (for  how  should  they?)  to 
discern  what  things  are  fittest  for  each  kind  and 
state  of  regiment."  In  other  words  "degree"  as 
with  Shakespeare  is  "the  specialty  of  rule,"  "the 
ladder  to  all  high  designs."  It  is  not  rule  or  law; 
nor  on  the  other  hand  a  series  of  social  ranks  in 
which,  regardless  of  capacity,  the  position  of  the 
individual  is  fixed.  In  political  society  men  "give 
their  common  consent  all  to  be  ordered  by  some 
whom  they  shall  agree  upon."1 

When  degree  of  due  fitness  and  function  under  the 
law  is  suffocate,  chaos,  according  to  Shakespeare's 
Ulysses,  "follows  the  choking:" 

And  this  neglection  of  degree  is  it 
That  by  a  pace  goes  backward,  in  a  purpose 
It  hath  to  climb.    The  general's  disdain'd 
130     By  him  one  step  below,  he  by  the  next, 
That  next  by  him  beneath;  so  every  step, 
Exampled  by  the  first  pace  that  is  sick 
Of  his  superior,  grows  to  an  envious  fever 
Of  pale  and  bloodless  emulation; 

1  Polity,  163,  166,  193,  190. 


1 86  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

135      And  'tis  this  fever  that  keeps  Troy  on  foot, 
Not  her  own  sinews. 

In  similar  tone  Hooker,  in  the  Preface  to  his  book, 
admonishes  Puritans  who,  objecting  to  orders  and 
degrees  in  the  Church  of  England  and  especially  the 
requirement  of  license  from  a  civil  magistrate,  abet 
the  Barrowists  in  wrecking  discipline:  "The  changes," 
says  he,  "likely  to  ensue  through  all  states  and  voca- 
tions within  this  land,  in  case  your  desire  should 
take  place,  must  be  thought  upon."  And  in  a  passage 
which  we  have  already  quoted  in  part:  "What  other 
sequel  can  any  wise  man  imagine  but  this,  that  having 
first  resolved  that  attempts  for  discipline  without  su- 
periors are  lawful,  it  will  follow  in  the  next  place  to  be 
disputed  what  may  be  attempted  against  superiors 
which  will  not  have  the  sceptre  of  that  discipline  to  rule 
over  them?"  1  The  sequel  is  that  of  Shakespeare's 
"neglection  of  degree." 

I  have  said  that  the  consentaneity  of  Shakespeare 
with  Hooker  is  widely  distributed  through  the  works 
of  the  former.  As  regards  the  doctrine  of  degree, 
of  aristodemocracy,  of  noblesse  oblige,  we  have  found 
it  not  only  in  Troilus  and  Cressida  but  in  The  Mer- 
chant of  Venice  (1594-6),  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well 
(1595-1602),  Henry  V  (1599),  and  in  Sonnet  66  of 
about  1602.  The  repudiation  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings  appears  in  Richard  II  (1595-7),  *n  other  his- 
torical plays,  and  in  Macbeth  (1605-6);  the  distrust 

1  Polity,  128, 142. 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  187 

of  mob  rule  and  flat  democracy,  in  the  historical 
plays  again,  in  Julius  Caesar  (1599-1600),  Coriolanus 
(1609),  and  The  Tempest  (1611);  equality  before 
the  law  and  the  supremacy  of  justice  in  Richard  II, 
Henry  V,  Measure  for  Measure  (1603-4);  justice  in 
international  affairs,  in  Henry  V  and  Troilus  and 
Cressida.  The  dignity  of  the  individual  and  the 
rights  of  the  poor  are  emphasized  in  many  of  the 
sonnets,  in  Hamlet  (1602-4),  in  Lear  (1604-6),  and 
many  other  plays.  From  the  citation  of  further 
parallels  exemplifying  the  sympathy  of  Shakespeare 
with  Hooker  in  respect  of  these  and  other  phases 
of  political  and  social  theory  I  refrain  lest  I  unduly 
repeat  passages  from  one  or  the  other  already  quoted 
in  full. 

I  may,  however,  be  pardoned,  if  I  quote  again 
those  lines  from  Hamlet  in  which  Shakespeare  makes 
vocal  the  democratic  murmur  of  his  day,  and  call 
attention  to  a  passage  in  Hooker.  "For  who,"  says 
the  Prince  of  Denmark,  subconsciously  philosophiz- 
ing, 

For  who  would  bear  the  whips  and  scorns  of  time, 
The  oppressor's  wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely, 
The  pangs  of  disprized  love,  the  law's  delay, 
The  insolence  of  office,  and  the  spurns 
That  patient  merit  of  the  unworthy  takes.  .  . 

For  these  lines,  those  who  delight  to  trace  Shake- 
speare to  his  sources  have,  so  far  as  I  know,  found  no 
parallel.  Any  such  I  venture  to  refer  without  preju- 


1 88  Shakespeare  and  Hooker 

dice  or  expression  of  opinion  to  Hooker,  where  in 
treating  of  laws  and  offices  (I,  x,  9),  he  says:  "If 
the  helm  of  chief  government  be  in  the  hands  of  a 
few  of  the  wealthiest,  then  laws  providing  for  con- 
tinuance thereof  must  make  the  punishment  of 
contumely  and  wrong  offered  unto  any  of  the  com- 
mon sort  sharp  and  grievous,  that  so  the  evil  may  be 
prevented  whereby  the  rich  are  most  likely  to  bring 
themselves  into  hatred  with  the  people,  who  are  not 
wont  to  take  so  great  offence  when  they  are  excluded 
from  honours  and  offices  as  when  their  persons  are 
contumeliously  trodden  upon." 

So  much  concerning  political  consentaneity.  The 
resemblances  accumulate  when  we  compare  the 
views  of  poet  and  divine  touching  questions  ethical 
and  psychological.  Though  not  precisely  in  the 
same  language,  still  with  similar  eloquence  of  con- 
viction Hooker,  as  well  as  Shakespeare,  teaches  that 
"there  is  some  soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil,  Would 
men  observingly  distil  it  out;"  that  "there  is  nothing 
either  good  or  bad,  but  thinking  makes  it  so;"  that 
"our  virtues  would  be  proud  if  our  faults  whipped 
them  not;  and  our  crimes  would  despair  if  they  were 
not  cherished  by  our  virtues;"  that  "value  dwells 
not  in  particular  will;"  that  "no  man  is  the  lord  of 
anything  .  .  .  Till  he  communicate  his  parts  to 
others;"  that  man  is  "a  beast  no  more — If  the  chief 
good  and  market  of  his  time  Be  but  to  sleep  and 
feed;"  that  by  "discourse  of  reason"  sound  knowl- 
edge is  attained,  the  will  conducted,  and  the  affec- 


Shakespeare  and  Hooker  189 

tions  or  forms  of  appetite  controlled;  that  God  "gave 
us  not  That  capability  and  godlike  reason  'io  fust 
in  us  unused,"  though  oftentimes  the  painfulness 
of  knowledge  or  "some  craven  scruple  of  thinking 
too  precisely  on  the  event"  may  cause  the  will  to 
shrink  and  decline  the  object  that  is  good.  No  less 
eloquently  than  Hamlet  has  Hooker  apostrophized 
man,  noble  in  reason,  infinite  in  faculties,  "in  form, 
and  moving  how  express  and  admirable!  in  action 
how  like  an  angel!  in  apprehension  how  like  a 
god!  the  beauty  of  the  world!  the  paragon  of  ani- 
mals!" 

Parallels  of  this  nature,  though  I  am  not  unaware 
that  masters  from  Plato  to  Montaigne  had  antici- 
pated our  two  Elizabethans  in  the  expression  of  one 
or  another  thought,  I  have  relegated  to  an  appendix 
for  the  benefit  of  those  who  may  be  curious.1  But 
such  readers  I  would  remind  that,  in  what  is  given 
there  or  what  has  already  been  quoted  here,  it  is  no 
part  of  my  intent  to  prove  deliberate  dependence  of 
the  poet  upon  the  divine.  I  am  aiming  merely  to 
show  that  the  Shakespeare  who  was  acquainted  with 
several  of  the  founders  of  colonial  liberty  in  America 
was  also  intimately  acquainted  with  the  philosophy 
which  their  wisest  entertained;  that  he  was  not  only 
sympathetic  with  their  purposes  but  of  like  mind 
with  the  master  to  whom  they  were  indebted  for 
their  political  principles — the  master  from  whom 

1  Appendix  J. 


190  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

our  American  forefathers  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously derived  much  that  was  essential  to  the  erec- 
tion of  that  "free  popular  state"  whose  "inhabitants 
should  have  no  government  putt  upon  them  but 
by  their  own  consente." 


England,  America,  France  191 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE     HERITAGE     IN     COMMON:     ENGLAND,     AMERICA, 
FRANCE 

THE  liberty  we  enjoy  today  is  what  it  is,  primarily 
because  Southampton,  Sandys  and  the  Ferrars, 
Selden,  Brooke,  Coke,  Sackville,  Cavendish  and 
other  patriots  were  Englishmen;  because  Gates, 
De  la  Warr,  and  Strachey,  Dale  and  Wyatt,  the 
Bradfords,  Brewsters,  and  Dudleys,  willing  to  ven- 
ture, were  Englishmen;  because  in  the  decades  when 
England  was  awakening  to  the  perils  of  arbitrary 
rule  at  home,  these  contemporaries  of  Hooker  and 
Shakespeare  established  in  the  New  World  an  ad- 
vance guard  of  English  rights.  From  Shakespeare's 
England  in  an  age  when  such  civil  and  political 
rights  were,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the 
United  Netherlands,  elsewhere  unrealized,  proceeded 
our  common  law,  our  trial  by  jury,  our  system  of 
representative  government,  our  free  institutions. 
It  is  to  Shakespeare's  England  that  the  Americans 
of  the  colonies  owed — that  Americans  of  today,  of 
whatever  stock  they  be,  owe — the  historic  privi- 
leges that  have  made  the  New  World  a  refuge  for 
the  oppressed  and  a  hope  for  humanity.  The  sapling 
of  civil  liberty  had  drawn  vigor  from  deep  roots  of 


192  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

Anglo-Saxon,  Anglo-Norman  consciousness,  and  for 
centuries  had  strained  steadily  upward.  In  the 
seventeenth  century  it  towered  as  an  oak,  and  shel- 
tered with  its  far-spread  arms  the  Britons  at  home 
and  Britons  in  America. 

The  thoughts  that  were  common  to  Hooker  and 
Shakespeare  and  Shakespeare's  friends,  the  dream 
of  the  well-ordered  state  where  merit  shall  govern, 
and  not  the  favoritism  of  kings  or  their  fabled  di- 
vinity,— the  ideals  of  individual  worth,  duty,  and 
patriotism,  were  common  to  our  English  forefathers, 
the  planters  of  Virginia,  the  pilgrims  of  the  May- 
flower and  Plymouth,  the  puritans  of  Massachusetts 
Bay.  Caelum  non  animum  mutant  qui  trans  mare 
currunt.  The  political  instincts  that,  in  the  dawn 
of  autocratic  stress,  were  the  heart  and  implicit 
moral  of  Shakespeare's  histories  and  tragedies  are 
the  principles  that  pulsing  into  motive  nerved  the 
will  and  steeled  the  sinew  of  his  younger  contem- 
poraries. The  political  freedom  that,  between  1609 
and  1640,  our  English  ancestors  of  Virginia  and  New 
England  put  into  form  and  practice  is  the  political 
freedom  for  which  our  grand-uncles  of  old  England 
fought  from  1642  to  1649,  nay,  to  1689.  Brad- 
ford and  Brewster,  Winthrop  and  Endicott,  John 
Cotton  and  Roger  Williams,  Harvard  and  Thomas 
Hooker,  of  New  England,  Alexander  Whitaker, 
Clayborne,  Bennett,  and  Nathaniel  Bacon,  of  Vir- 
ginia, belong  to  the  history  of  English  ideals  no  less 
than  to  that  of  America.  And  Hampden,  Pym, 


England,  America,  France  193 

Cromwell,  Milton  and  Bunyan,  and  the  Seven 
Bishops  who  defied  the  second  James,  were  but 
brothers  to  our  English  sires  in  New  England. 
Brothers  of  the  same  blood  and  ultimate  ideal  were 
also  the  royalists  of  Virginia.  Their  conservatism 
and  devotion  to  a  lost  cause  rendered  them  none 
the  less  certain  "in  the  free  air  of  the  New  World 
to  develop  into  uncompromising  democrats  and 
fierce  defenders  of  their  own  privileges." 


Of  all  these  Englishmen  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, whether  of  the  Old  World  or  the  New,  there 
was  a  heritage  in  common.  One  language  welded  of 
the  Old  English,  Scandinavian,  Gallic  and  Latin: 
manly,  direct,  sober  and  natively  consistent;  un- 
fettered, experimental,  acquisitive;  from  emergency 
to  emergency  shaped  according  to  the  need,  incom- 
parable in  riches  ever  cumulative.  One  race,  one 
nation,  one  blood  infused  of  many  strains  and  diverse 
characteristics:  of  the  Anglo-Saxon,  the  personal 
independence  and  native  conservatism;  of  the  Nor- 
man, the  martial  genius,  equity,  political  vision, 
masterful  and  unifying  authority, — and  of  the  Nor- 
man, the  chivalry,  the  romance  and  culture,  too; 
of  the  Celt,  intermingling  with  these  in  the  centuries 
that  flowed  into  Shakespeare,  a  current  of  aspira- 
tion, poignant  passion,  poetic  imagination — stirring 
the  blood  but  not  intoxicating  the  Anglo-Norman 


194  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

reason.  One  custom,  of  spiritual  ideal  but  of  tried 
experience — practical  rather  than  speculative,  dis- 
trustful of  veering  sentiment,  slowly  crystallizing 
into  the  stability  of  a  national  consciousness:  a  cus- 
tom of  individual  prerogative  and  of  obedience  to 
the  authority  that  conserves  the  prerogative;  of  fair 
play  and  equality  of  opportunity,  of  fearless  speech 
for  the  right,  and  simple  for  the  common  weal;  a 
custom  making  for  popular  sovereignty,  for  alle- 
giance, for  national  honor  in  national  fair  dealing, 
for  the  might  that  is  right;  one  custom,  mother  of 
the  law.  One  common  law:  the  progressive  expres- 
sion "of  a  free  people's  needs  and  standards  of  jus- 
tice;" the  outgrowth  of  social  conditions,  deriving 
its  authority  not  from  enactment  of  sovereign  mon- 
arch or  sovereign  legislature  but  from  the  aggregate 
social  will — the  law  of  precedent  and  of  the  righteous 
independence  of  the  courts. 

Long  before  Magna  Charta  features  of  this  law, 
this  conservatively  expanding  charter  of  liberties 
and  duties,  are  distinguishable  in  the  procedure  of 
our  forefathers  in  England.  From  the  days  of  Ethel- 
bert  to  those  of  Alfred,  and  from  Alfred  to  Edward 
the  Confessor,  for  four  and  a  half  centuries  before 
the  Conquest  this  law,  hardly  if  at  all  affected  by 
foreign  corpus  or  code,  had  been  "gathering  itself 
together  out  of  the  custom  of"  the  independently 
developing  Anglo-Saxon.  This  sanction  "the  Con- 
queror, who  claimed  the  crown  by  virtue  of  English 
law  and  professed  to  rule  by  English  law,"  repeat- 


England,  America,  France  195 

edly  bound  himself  to  observe,  "and  he  handed 
down  the  tradition  to  all  who  came  after  him."  * 
This  law  of  national  precedent,  further  developed 
under  Henry  II  and  systematically  expounded  by 
Glanvil,  or  by  some  clerk  under  his  direction,  grew 
into  the  Great  Charter  of  King  John  with  its  equal 
distribution  of  civil  rights  to  all  classes  of  freemen, 
and  its  restriction  of  monarchical  prerogative.  "The 
king,"  writes  Bracton  in  the  days  of  John's  successor, 
Henry  III,  "must  not  be  subject  to  any  man  but 
to  God  and  the  law;  for  the  law  makes  him  king. 
Let  the  king  therefore  give  to  the  law  what  the  law 
gives  to  him,  dominion  and  power;  for  there  is  no 
king  where  will,  and  not  law,  bears  rule."  2  The 
relation  of  this  English  law  of  custom  to  the  general 
nature  of  law  as  set  forth  in  the  civil  code  of  the 
Roman  system,  Bracton  expounds;  but  from  that 
system  the  peculiar  English  law  is  not  derived.  Ex- 
panding through  Fortescue  and  Littleton  this  Eng- 
lish law  is  the  common  law  of  Coke;  and  by  the  Vir- 
ginia charter  of  1606,  probably  drafted  by  Coke,  the 
rights  of  the  common  law  were  conferred  upon  the 
colonists  of  the  New  World. 

For  these  Englishmen  of  the  "sceptred  isle"  and 
of  the  untilled  wilderness  of  the  west  there  had  been 
one  spirit  energizing  toward  freedom — civil  and 
religious;  one  charter  of  rights  and  obligations.  Of 
political  development  there  had  been  a  continuous 

1  Freeman,  Comparative  Politics,  p.  114. 

1  The  Laws  and  Customs  of  England,  Bk.  I,  ch.  viii. 


196  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

history  for  eleven  hundred  years  before  England  was 
planted  in  America.  There  had  also  been  one  lit- 
erature, as  ancient  and  as  noble,  stirring  in  embers  of 
racial  tradition — a  tradition  of  service  and  heroism 
and  generous  acceptance  of  fate;  kindling  to  mirth 
and  pity,  humanity  and  reverence;  leaping  to  flame 
in  imagination  and  power;  and,  in  the  decades  when 
first  the  English  peopled  "worlds  in  the  yet  un- 
formed Occident,"  attaining  full  glory  in  the  zenith 
of  Shakespeare. 

Not  with  those  eleven  hundred  years  ceased  the 
oneness  of  the  English  heritage.  For  a  period  longer 
than  that  which  has  elapsed  since  the  American 
branch  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  has  been  a  separate 
nation,  the  heritage  was  one.  One  hundred  and 
forty  years  have  succeeded  our  declaration  of  in- 
dependence. Through  the  hundred  and  seventy 
which  preceded,  the  history  of  Britain  was  the 
continuing  property  of  our  forefathers  of  Virginia 
and  New  England.  Not  only  Hampden  and  Crom- 
well and  the  Ironsides,  but  Chatham,  Holland, 
Burke,  and  Sir  Philip  Francis,  were  compatriots  of 
the  colonials.  The  admirals  of  the  fleet,  Blake, 
Vernon,  Anson,  Hawke,  were  our  admirals.  It  was 
for  the  nascent  empire  of  our  British  and  British- 
American  forefathers  that  they  won  the  supremacy 
of  the  sea.  The  victories  of  Marlborough,  dive's 
conquest  of  India,  Wolfe's  conquest  of  Canada — to 
which  the  young  George  Washington  contributed 
the  services  of  his  still  British  sword — were  glories 


England,  America,  France  197 

not  of  a  foreign  race  but  of  our  race.  For  four  gen- 
erations we  have  been  an  independent  people.  But 
for  six  generations  before  that  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  strivings  of  our  British  compatriots  toward 
truth  and  freedom  were  those  of  the  British  in 
America.  Harrington,  Algernon  Sidney,  Locke, 
Hume  and  Berkeley  were  ours.  And  in  literature, 
Milton  and  Bunyan,  Dryden  and  Pope,  Swift, 
Addison,  Gray  and  Goldsmith  were  our  poets  and 
essayists.  Such  was  the  birthright  of  our  British 
forefathers  in  the  American  colonies.  True  it  is,  that 
in  legal  procedure  they  preferred,  during  the  years 
of  primitive  social  conditions,  the  appeal  to  divine 
law  and  the  law  of  reason  or  of  human  nature,  as 
expounded  by  Hooker  and  his  school,  to  any  kind  of 
law  positive;  and  it  is  true  that,  within  the  field  of 
positive  law,  they  took  more  kindly  to  the  civil 
which  derives  authority  from  enactment  than  to  the 
common  which  derives  from  precedent.  But  when 
they  reached  "the  stage  of  social  organization  which 
the  common  law  expressed,"  they  were  only  too  glad 
to  claim  that  birthright  also,  as  conveyed  by  various 
early  charters.1  And  upon  such  right  they  based 
their  appeal  for  civil  liberty. 

Not  at  all  with  1776  did  the  English  heritage  cease 
to  be  the  same  for  the  sons  of  England  at  home  and 
over  the  seas.  In  their  resistance  to  taxation  without 

1  Nathan  Abbott,  Characteristics  of  the  Common  Law,  in 
St.  Louis  Congress,  Vol.  II,  283 — from  Dr.  Reinsch,  Bulletin 
Univ.  Wisconsin,  no.  31. 


198  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

representation,  to  coercion  by  force,  to  the  Acts  of 
Trade,  the  colonists  in  America  were  supported  by 
Fox  and  the  elder  Pitt,  by  Shelburne,  Camden, 
Burke,  Rockingham,  and  all  true  patriots  at 
home.  Americans  were  asserting  their  rights  as 
Englishmen  under  charter  and  common  law.  "Do 
not  break  their  charter;  do  not  take  away  rights 
granted  them  by  the  predecessors  of  the  Crown!" 
cried  members  of  the  English  House  of  Commons. 
Pitt  "pointed  out  distinctly  that  the  Americans  were 
upholding  those  eternal  principles  of  political  justice 
which  should  be  to  all  Englishmen  most  dear,  and 
that  a  victory  over  the  colonies  would  be  of  ill  omen 
for  English  liberty,  whether  in  the  Old  World  or  the 
New."  Speaking  of  the  tea-duty  Lord  North  had 
asseverated,  "I  will  never  think  of  repealing  it  until 
I  see  America  prostrate  at  my  feet."  To  this  Colonel 
Barre  retorted,  "Does  any  friend  of  his  country  really 
wish  to  see  America  thus  humbled  ?  In  such  a  situa- 
tion she  would  serve  only  as  a  monument  of  your  arro- 
gance and  your  folly.  For  my  part  the  America  I 
wish  to  see  is  America  increasing  and  prosperous, 
raising  her  head  in  graceful  dignity,  with  freedom 
and  firmness  asserting  her  rights  at  your  bar,  vin- 
dicating her  liberties,  pleading  her  services,  and 
conscious  of  her  merit.  This  is  the  America  that  will 
have  spirit  to  fight  your  battles,  to  sustain  you  when 
hard  pushed  by  some  prevailing  foe.  .  .  .  Unless 
you  repeal  this  law  you  run  the  risk  of  losing  Amer- 
ica." In  the  House  of  Lords,  three  devoted  de- 


England,  America,  France  199 

fenders  of  American  liberty  were  the  Dukes  of  Port- 
land, Devonshire  and  Northumberland.  They  were 
descended  from  Henry  Wriothesley,  third  earl  of 
Southampton,  the  founder  with  Sir  Edwin  Sandys  of 
the  charter  liberties  of  Virginia.1  In  that  House, 
protesting  against  the  "Intolerable  Acts"  of  1774, 
the  Duke  of  Richmond  thundered,  "  I  wish  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart  that  the  Americans  may  resist, 
and  get  the  better  of  the  forces  sent  against  them." 
Not  the  historical  precedent  of  England  or  the 
political  wisdom  of  her  best  "arrayed  her  in  hostility 
to  every  principle  of  public  justice  which  English- 
men had  from  time  immemorial  held  sacred,"  but 
the  perversity  of  an  un-English  prince  and  of  his 
fatuous  advisers.  Bent  upon  thwarting  the  policy 
of  reformers  who  would  make  the  Commons  more 
truly  representative  of  the  English  people,  upon 
destroying  the  system  of  cabinet  government,  and 
resuscitating  the  theory  of  divine  right,  these  un- 
fortunates picked  their  quarrel  with  the  American 
colonies.  "For,"  as  John  Fiske  shrewdly  remarks, 
"if  the  American  position  that  there  should  be  no 
taxation  without  representation,  were  once  granted, 
then  it  would  straightway  become  necessary  to  admit 
the  principles  of  parliamentary  reform,"  and  to  call 
the  liberals  to  power  in  England.  A  representation 
of  the  colonies  in  Westminster,  though  favored  by 
some  great  Englishmen,  might  have  been  imprac- 
ticable; but  if  George  III  had  listened  to  the  elder 
1  Brown,  Eng.  Pol.  in  Va.,  147. 


2OO  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

Pitt  and  his  followers,  he  would  have  recognized  the 
right  of  American  freemen  to  levy  their  own  taxes, 
and  the  revolution  would  have  been  obviated.  The 
would-be  autocrat  forced  the  issue  in  America  and 
was  defeated.  If  there  had  been  no  revolution  in 
America  there  would  have  been  a  revolution  in 
England,  and  the  monarch  would  in  all  probability 
have  been  dethroned.  The  War  of  Independence 
reasserted  for  England  as  well  as  for  America  the 
political  rights  for  which  Englishmen,  from  the  time 
of  King  John  to  that  of  James  I,  from  the  time  of 
Hooker,  Shakespeare,  Sandys,  Bradford,  Winthrop. 
Sir  Thomas  Dale  and  Sir  Francis  Wyatt,  to  that  of 
Cromwell,  had  contended.  It  confirmed  the  vic- 
tories of  the  Great  Rebellion  and  of  the  Revolution 
of  1688.  The  younger  Pitt  denounced  the  war  against 
the  American  colonies  as  "most  accursed,  wicked, 
barbarous,  cruel,  unnatural,  unjust,  and  diabolical." 
And  when  Charles  Fox  heard  that  Cornwallis  had 
surrendered  at  Yorktown,  he  leaped  from  his  chair 
and  clapped  his  hands.1  The  victory  at  Yorktown 
dissipated  once  for  all  the  fatal  delusion  of  divine 
prerogative.  Those  who  conceived  and  carried 
through  the  American  Revolution  were  Anglo-Saxons : 
Otis,  Samuel  and  John  Adams,  Hancock,  Henry, 
Richard  Henry  Lee,  Franklin,  Jefferson,  Washington. 
The  greatest  of  Americans  was  the  greatest  English- 
man of  his  age:  Washington  was  but  asserting  against 

1  See  John  Fiske,  The  American  Revolution,  I,  26,  34,  35, 
40,  42,  45,  62,  93,  98,  100;  II,  286. 


England,  America,  France  201 

a  despotic  sovereign  of  German  blood  and  broken 
English  speech  the  prerogative  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
breed,  the  faith  of  his  liberal  brothers  in  England. 

Political  history  has,  indeed,  worn  its  independent 
channel;  but  spirit  and  speech,  letters,  order  of  free- 
dom and  control  in  the  America  of  today  are  of  the 
ancient  blood  and  custom. 

Our  Monroe  doctrine  is  as  old  as  Shakespeare's 
day:  it  is  but  Sir  Edwin  Sandys's  "Where  no  govern- 
ment shall  be  putte  upon  them  save  by  their  own 
consente,"  adapted  to  the  conditions  of  a  new  con- 
tinent. Our  zeal  for  arbitration  is  but  Hooker's 
desire  for  "an  universal  fellowship  with  all  men." 
For  our  doctrine  of  the  "freedom  of  the  seas,"  Eng- 
land has  consistently  contended,  and  has  been  de- 
feated of  her  aim,  only  because  the  central  autocracy 
of  Europe  has  refused  to  concede  a  like  "freedom 
of  the  land."  Conspicuously  ours,  conspicuously 
theirs  of  modern  -England,  as  in  the  day  of  Hooker 
and  Sandys,  Selden  and  Coke,  when  it  first  attained 
full  consciousness,  is  that  which  lies  at  the  heart  of 
all  Shakespeare's  utterance  regarding  individual 
prerogative — the  due  process  of  law:  the  law  of  prec- 
edent and  fair  play  and  righteous  independence  of 
the  courts.  "A  great  element  of  civil  liberty"  is 
this,  wrote  an  eminent  German  jurist  before  the 
present  German  War,  "and  part  of  a  real  govern- 
ment of  law  which  in  its  totality  has  been  developed 
by  the  Anglican  tribe  alone."  It  was  in  the  English 
Inns  of  Court  that  Winthrop,  Bellingham,  and 


2O2  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

Dudley  gained  the  rudiments  of  that  common  law; 
there,  too,  the  Virginian  leaders  of  bench  and  bar 
at  the  planting  of  the  colony,  and  in  her  palmiest 
days;  there,  too,  many  of  the  signers  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  From  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific  this  system  of  law  "better  suited  to  the 
needs  of  a  free  people  and  an  advancing  civilization 
than  the  civil,  which  obtained  its  historical  form 
under  an  absolute  empire,"  has  been  established  by 
those  who  have  inherited  the  institutions  of  the 
England  of  the  early  seventeenth  century.  And 
still,  three  hundred  years  after  our  founding,  "the 
resemblances  between  the  common  law  in  America 
and  its  parent  in  England  are  greater  than  the  dif- 
ferences, and  the  differences  are  rather  in  degree 
than  in  kind."1  America  still  holds  to  the  wisdom 
of  her  Shakespearian  ancestors. 

II 

Much  as  we  owe  to  monarchical  France  for  her 
assistance  during  our  War  of  Independence  against 
her  English  rival  for  European  and  colonial  su- 
premacy; much  as  we  cherish  the  long-continued  and 
unselfish  amity  of  republican  France,  and  similar  as 
her  devotion  and  ours  to  the  creed  of  equal  human 
dignity  and  equal  intellectual  opportunity;  sym- 

1E.  McClain,  History  of  Law,  270;  and  Nathan  Abbott, 
Characteristics  of  the  Common  Law,  274,  283,  in  St.  Louis  Con- 
gress, Vol.  II. 


England,  America,  France  203 

pathetic  as  we  are  in  democratic  polity  and  ideal; 
and  indissoluble  as  the  bond  with  her  in  the  sister- 
hood of  free  powers, — to  say,  as  does  a  recent  writer 
in  one  of  our  most  dignified  and  authoritative  Amer- 
ican periodicals,  that  "it  was  from  the  philosophers 
of  the  French  Revolution  that  we  learned  the  ideals 
of  equal  citizenship  and  republicanism,"  1  is  not 
only  to  invert  the  sequence  of  history  but  to  mis- 
state a  fundamental  issue.  To  assert  that  "the 
ideas  of  Rousseau,  much  more  than  the  political 
theories  of  the  mother  country,  inspired  us  in  our 
first  efforts  toward  democratic  liberty,"  is  to  dis- 
tort our  relation  with  the  one  country  from  which 
we  derive  our  political  traditions,  aspirations,  and 
free  institutions.  The  authors  of  our  Declaration 
of  Independence  inherited  not  from  Rousseau  or 
any  French  philosopher  but  from  their  own  ancestors 
and  cousins,  the  liberal  statesmen  and  political 
philosophers  of  England;  and  from  their  own  colonial 
ancestors,  by  whom  the  principles  of  Anglo-American 
political  theory  had  been  developed  before  1776  in 
the  experience  of  the  various  colonial  governments. 
The  philosophers  of  the  French  Revolution  learned 
the  ideals  of  equal  citizenship  and  republicanism 
from  England;  and  the  leaders  of  that  revolution 
were  inspired  by  the  English  Revolution  of  1688  and 
the  American  of  1776.  "There  is  no  evidence  to 
show  that  Rousseau's  Contrat  Social  of  1762  was  a 
force"  at  the  time  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
1  Arthur  Bullard,  Atlantic  Monthly,  Nov.,  1916,  pp.  635-636. 


204  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

ence;  "and  the  doctrines  ascribed  to  him  were  really 
those  of  Locke,  who  was  the  quarry  from  whom  the 
Revolutionary  fathers  drew  both  thoughts  and 
phrases."  *  "There  is  abundant  evidence  of  the  fact 
that  Locke's  Essays  on  Government  were  read  and 
studied  in  the  Revolutionary  period."  2  Locke  is 
continually  quoted  as  final  authority  in  their  dis- 
cussions and  writings.  "Locke  was  the  philosopher 
of  the  American  Revolution,  as  he  was  of  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1688."  3  And  since  Locke  was  a  student  of 
Hooker,  here  again  we  go  back  to  the  germinating 
thought  of  Shakespeare's  day. 

For  Locke,  the  compact  by  which  man  passes  out 
of  a  state  of  nature  and  governments  come  into  ex- 
istence has  two  stages.  First,  the  formation  of  a 
society,  or  commonwealth,  each  individual  agreeing 
to  surrender  to  it,  not  all  his  natural  rights  to  life, 
liberty,  and  estate,  but  his  single  right  of  executing 
the  law  of  nature  and  punishing  offenses  against 
that  law.  This  agreement  is  perpetual  and  irrevo- 
cable. Second,  the  formation  of  institutions  for  the 
government  of  the  commonwealth.  By  agreement 
with  a  dynasty  or  king  or  other  ruler — monarchical, 
oligarchical  or  democratic — the  commonwealth  places 
authority  in  the  hands  of  a  government  for  the  at- 
tainment of  the  ends  of  civil  and  political  society. 

1  A.  B.  Hart,  National  Ideals,  p.  98. 

1  A.  C.  McLaughlin,  Social  Compact,  etc.,  in  Am.  Hist.  Rev., 
V,  467,  468. 

« Ibid. 


England,  America,  France  205 

This  is  a  contract  between  the  commonwealth  (con- 
stituted by  the  social  pact)  and  the  ruler;  and  it  is 
subject  to  revision  by  the  commonwealth  whenever 
organic  change  is  necessitated  for  the  common  good. 
If  the  ruler  override  his  prerogative,  the  contract  is 
broken  and  the  commonwealth  absolved  from  its 
allegiance.  Not  the  ruler  is  supreme,  but  the  legisla- 
tive power;  and  even  it  is  not  absolute,  but  limited 
by  fundamental  and  known  laws.1  This  was  the 
doctrine  by  which  our  forefathers  justified  their 
revolt.  Of  course  Locke  knew  that  the  state  of 
nature  was  an  assumption,  and  the  social  compact  a 
fiction.  But  he  was  himself  unable  to  disprove  them 
and  they  served  his  purpose:  to  justify  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1688. 

According  to  Rousseau,  on  the  other  hand,  by  an 
original  contract  of  society,  which  people  emerging 
from  a  state  of  nature  ought  to  have  signed — but 
did  not,  the  people  would  become  sovereign.  There 
should  be  no  second  stage,  no  contract  between  the 
people  and  a  government,  whether  of  king  or  any 
other  ruler.  The  sovereign  power  of  the  people  is 
"inalienable,  indivisible,  and  it  would  seem,  in- 
fallible, if  you  can  only  get  the  *  general  will'  truly 
expressed."  The  executive  and  judicial  powers 
may  be  entrusted  to  agents  who  are  creatures  of  the 
sovereign  people.  But  the  legislative  power,  which 

1  Frederick  Pollock,  History  of  the  Science  of  Politics,  pp.  29- 
31;  Wm.  A.  Dunning,  The  Political  Philosophy  of  John  Locke, 
in  Political  Science  Quarterly,  XX,  232-233. 


206  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

is  absolute,  cannot  be  delegated  to  representatives. 
It  must  remain  in  the  hands  of  the  people  and  be 
exercised  by  them  alone.  Since  the  people  of  any 
but  a  small  country  are  too  numerous  to  get  together 
and  legislate  it  is  hard  to  see  how  in  Rousseau's 
democracy  they  would  be  any  better  off  than  they 
were  in  a  state  of  nature.  And  if  such  despots  dele- 
gate their  legislative  sovereignty  to  chosen  repre- 
sentatives— as  Rousseau's  disciples  did — they  but 
set  up  a  Frankenstein  in  comparison  with  whose 
delegated  despotism  the  state  of  nature  would  be 
paradise.  Rousseau  assumes  conditions  different 
from  those  which  confronted  our  forefathers  of  1776, 
and  he  develops  his  theory  in  a  way  that  Locke 
would  have  considered  subversive  of  all  constitu- 
tional government. 

Locke  was  advocating  a  delegated  and  limited 
sovereignty  in  the  hands  of  aristodemocracy;  Rous- 
seau, "a  democracy  of  the  extremest  type"  whose 
sovereignty  was  absolute,  and  whose  law-making 
power  in  the  hands  of  all,  no  matter  how  ignorant. 
With  Locke  "the  contract  was  made  mainly  to 
protect  property."  With  Rousseau,  the  same;  but 
he  "places  property  at  the  discretion  of  the  sovereign 
people  " — a  doctrine  which,  though  later  retracted  by 
him,  was  and  is  the  basis  of  the  wildest  commun- 
ism. Thus  Rousseau  developed  the  doctrines  of 
Locke,  the  thinkers  of  the  Protectorate,  and  Hooker 
before  them,  into  "the  destructive  democracy  and 
direct  sovereignty  of  the  people"  which  manifested 


England,  America,  France  207 

themselves  in  the  excesses  of  1789  to  1793.*  But  if 
these  English  philosophers  had  not  enunciated  their 
premises,  Rousseau's  Contrat  Social  would  never 
have  been  evolved.  For  Rousseau  was  a  careful 
student  of  Locke;  and  in  Locke  there  is  little  that 
was  not  derived  from  the  immediately  preceding 
political  philosophy  of  England.  It  was  also  from 
the  writers  of  the  English  Revolution  of  1689,  es- 
pecially Locke,  and  from  observation  of  English 
constitutional  government,  that  the  philosophers  of 
the  French  Revolution  other  than  Rousseau  de- 
rived most  of  the  essentials  of  their  democratic 
theory.2 

Rousseau's  influence  upon  the  America  of  1776 
was  practically  nil.  It  pertains  rather  to  the  period 
succeeding  1789.  The  idea  of  government  as  the 
creature  of  the  sovereign  people,  with  its  various 
corollaries,  is  "much  more  in  harmony  with  later 
American  conditions  [from  1830  on]  than  was  the 
idea  of  Locke;"  but  the  fact  remains  that  "the 
American  Revolution  was  fought  out  on  the  principle 
of  the  English  philosopher  and  in  recognition  of  the 
idea  of  a  contract  between  king  and  people.  .  .  . 
And  the  notion  was  too  firmly  rooted  not  to  retain 
its  hold  long  after  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution."3 

In  the  Constitution  itself,   and   in  the  classical 

1  W.  Graham,  English  Political  Philosophy  from  Hobbes  to 
Maine,  56,  59,  66-7,  69. 

*Gooch,  Hist.  Eng.  Democratic  Ideas,  357-8. 
1  McLaughlin,  Social  Compact,  etc.,  479. 


208  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

contemporaneous  commentary  on  and  in  defense 
of  it,  the  Federalist,  there  is  indeed  manifest  the 
authority  of  Montesquieu's  treatise  on  The  Spirit 
of  Laws,  1748;  but  "of  the  supposed  influence  of 
other  continental  authors  such  as  Rousseau  there 
are  few  direct  traces  in  the  Federal  Constitution." 
With  Montesquieu's  doctrine  of  the  separation  of 
powers  in  the  three  coordinate  departments  of 
government  our  fathers  were  thoroughly  acquainted. 
But  it  was  from  England  that  Montesquieu  derived 
the  doctrine:  the  England  of  Magna  Charta,  the 
Petition  of  Right,  the  Bill  of  Rights.  "Contrasting 
the  private  as  well  as  public  liberties  of  Englishmen 
with  the  despotism  of  Continental  Europe  Montes- 
quieu had  taken  the  Constitution  of  England  as  his 
model  system,  and  had  ascribed  its  merits  to  the 
division  of  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial  func- 
tions which  he  discovered  in  it,  and  to  the  system 
of  checks  and  balances  whereby  its  equilibrium 
seemed  to  be  preserved."  1  Both  the  doctrine  and 
the  safeguard  were,  however,  developed  by  Black- 
stone  as  well,  whose  Commentaries  of  1765  were  in 
the  hands  of  all  American  publicists.  And,  so  far 
as  the  separation  of  the  legislative  and  executive 
powers  is  concerned,  the  doctrine  had  already  been 
expounded  by  Locke,2  of  whom  Montesquieu  and 
Blackstone  were  students.  As  to  the  independence 
of  the  judicial  power  in  case  of  conflict  between  the 

1  Bryce,  American  Commonwealth,  I,  29. 
*  Of  Civil  Government,  Sees.  143-159. 


England,  America,  France  209 

law-making  power  and  the  executive,  or  of  oppres- 
sion of  the  people  by  either,  that  is  again  and  again 
implied  by  Locke.  "The  legislative,  or  supreme 
authority,  ...  is  bound  to  dispense  justice,  and 
decide  the  'rights  of  the  subject  by  promulgating 
standing  laws,  and  known  authorized  judges." 
"Those  who  are  united  into  one  body,  and  have  a 
common  established  law  and  judicature  to  appeal 
to,  with  authority  to  decide  controversies  between 
them,  and  punish  offenders,  are  in  civil  society  with 
one  another."  Though  he  subsumes  under  the  legisla- 
tive both  the  law-making  and  the  judicial  functions, 
he  emphasizes  always  the  independence  of  the  "judges 
with  authority  to  appeal  to."  1  What  Montesquieu 
did  was  to  clarify  and  systematize  Locke's  sugges- 
tion; and  in  the  background  of  Locke's  consciousness 
was  always  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity. 

Whatever  influence  the  French  philosophers  had 
upon  the  course  of  American  political  theory  and 
practice  was  in  general  an  influence  derived  by 
France  from  England,  and  the  major  part  of  any 
such  influence  belongs,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  years 
succeeding  1789.  What  the  framers  of  our  Consti- 
tution did  not  owe  to  the  initiative  of  English  politi- 
cal and  legal  writers,  they  owed  to  their  own  experi- 
ence of  the  English  common  law,  to  "the  experience 
of  their  colonial  and  state  governments,  and  es- 
pecially, for  this  was  freshest  and  most  in  point, 
the  experience  of  the  working  of  the  State  Constitu- 
1  Civ.  Gov.,  Sees.  136,  87,  and  20,  21,  88,  240,  241. 


2io  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

tions,  framed  at  or  since  the  date  when  the  colonies 
threw  off  their  English  allegiance.  .  .  .  The  Amer- 
ican Constitution  is  no  exception  to  the  rule  that 
everything  which  has  power  to  win  the  obedience 
and  respect  of  men  must  have  its  roots  deep  in  the 
past,  and  that  the  more  slowly  every  institution  has 
grown,  so  much  the  more  enduring  is  it  likely  to 
prove.  .  .  .  Whatever  success  it  has  attained  must 
be  in  large  measure  ascribed  to  the  political  genius, 
ripened  by  long  experience,  of  the  Anglo-American 
race.  .  .  .  There  is  little  in  this  Constitution  that 
is  absolutely  new.  There  is  much  that  is  as  old  as 
Magna  Charta."  * 

Neither  the  American  appeal  to  the  natural  rights 
of  man  and  the  social  compact,  nor  the  doctrine  of 
the  separation  of  governmental  powers,  was  bor- 
rowed from  France.  Nor  was  the  idea  of  a  federal 
union.  That  owes  nothing  to  the  experience  of  any 
Continental  country:  not  to  the  leagues  of  ancient 
Greece;  not  to  the  modern  Swiss  cantons  or  the 
United  Netherlands.  It  was  the  application  of  the 
"compact"  philosophy  of  Locke  to  the  exigency 
of  American  conditions  at  the  American  moment. 
"No  one  who  has  studied  the  primary  material  will 
be  ready  to  assert  that"  the  framers  of  the  Consti- 
tution "consistently  and  invariably  acted  upon  a 
single  principle,  that  they  were  altogether  conscious 
of  the  nature  and  import  of  what  was  being  done, 
and  that  they  constantly  spoke  with  logical  ac- 
1  Bryce,  Am.  Com.  I,  28-30. 


England,  America,  France  211 

curacy  of  the  process.  .  .  .  But  as  far  as  one  can 
find  a  consistent  principle,  it  is  this,  that  by  compact 
of  the  most  solemn  and  original  kind  a  new  political 
organization  and  a  new  indissoluble  unit  was  being 
reared  in  America.  The  compact  was  sometimes 
spoken  of  as  a  compact  between  the  individuals  of 
America  in  their  most  original  and  primary  charac- 
ter," constructing  society  anew;  "sometimes  it  was 
looked  on  as  a  compact  between  groups  of  individ- 
uals," or  States,  "each  group  surrendering  a  portion 
of  its  self-control  and  forming  a  new  order  or  unity 
just  as  society  itself  was  constituted."  *  Here  again 
not  only  does  the  "compact"  theory  come  from 
Locke,  but  the  hint  of  federal  organization.  For 
with  the  legislative  and  executive  branches  of  gov- 
ernment he  coordinates  also  what  he  calls  the  "fed- 
erative." And  his  remarks  concerning  the  federa- 
tive function  of  government — "the  power  of  war 
and  peace,  leagues  and  alliances,  and  all  the  trans- 
actions with  all  persons  and  communities  without 
the  Commonwealth" — are  no  less  applicable  to  the 
inter-state  relations  of  sovereign  commonwealths 
or  groups,  entering  the  "more  perfect  Union,"  than 
to  the  relations  of  the  more  perfect  Union,  or  federal 
Commonwealth  in  its  totality,  with  foreign  persons 
and  communities.2 

Far  from  being  true  that  from  the  philosophers  of 
the  French  Revolution  "we  learned  the  ideals  of 

1  McLaughlin,  Social  Compact,  etc.,  472. 
8  Of  Civil  Government,  Sees.  146-148. 


212  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

citizenship  and  republicanism,"  and  that  "the  ideas 
of  Rousseau  much  more  than  the  political  theories 
of  the  mother  country  inspired  us  in  our  first  efforts 
toward  democratic  liberty,"  not  only  we  but  the 
French  themselves  learned  the  political  theories — 
legal  equality,  sovereignty  of  the  people,  participa- 
tion in  government — and  derived  the  inspiration  of 
democratic  liberty  from  English  philosophers  and 
from  English  and  Anglo-American  experience.  It 
was  Locke's  theory,  based,  I  •  repeat,  upon  that  of 
Hooker  and  of  his  disciples,  the  founders  of  our  first 
American  charters  of  freedom;  it  was  Locke's  theory 
of  the  transformation  of  a  state  of  nature  into  a  civil 
state  by  a  contract;  Locke's  theory  of  legal  and 
political  equality  and  of  "a  sovereignty  of  the 
people  without  too  much  of  either  sovereignty  or 
people;  ...  of  natural  rights,  but  not  too  many  of 
them,  and  of  a  separation  of  powers  that  was  not  too 
much  of  a  separation;"  Locke's  theory  of  the  right  of 
resistance  and  the  "appeal  to  Heaven, — "  that  jus- 
tified the  English  Revolution  of  1688  and  the  Bill  of 
Rights,  and  vivified  the  succeeding  constitutional 
reforms.  Locke's  theory  "was  brought  over,  sup- 
ported by  the  practical  illustration  of  the  accom- 
plished English  Revolution,  to  the  Continent,  where 
many  of  its  elements  were  taken  up  and  developed  to 
their  logical  limits"  and  beyond  by  [Rousseau  and 
other]  thinkers  of  France."  l  It  was  this  same  theory, 

1  Wm.  A.  Dunning,  The  Political  Philosophy  of  John  Locke, 
Pol.  Sci.  Quart.,  XX,  245. 


England,  America,  France  213 

as  embodied  in  the  American  Declaration  of  Rights 
of  1774,  and  in  that  of  Independence,  and  success- 
fully asserted  by  our  Revolution,  and  more  or  less 
reflected  in  our  Anglo-American  Constitution,  that 
inspired  the  thinking  patriots  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. It  was  the  same  theory,  tinctured  with  dan- 
gerous elaborations  from  Rousseau,  that  in  1789  in- 
spired the  French  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man. 
"Celebrated  writers  of  France  and  England,"  says 
Jefferson,  who  was  our  minister  plenipotentiary  in 
Paris  at  the  time,  "had  already  sketched  good  prin- 
ciples on  the  subject  of  government;  yet  the  American 
Revolution  seems  first  to  have  awakened  the  thinking 
part  of  the  French  nation  in  general  from  the  sleep 
of  despotism  in  which  they  were  sunk.  The  officers 
too,  who  had  been  to  America,  were  mostly  young 
men,  less  shackled  by  habit  and  prejudice,  and  more 
ready  to  assent  to  the  suggestions  of  common  sense, 
and  feelings  of  common  rights,  than  others.  They 
came  back  with  new  ideas  and  impressions.  The 
press,  notwithstanding  its  shackles,  began  to  dis- 
seminate them;  conversation  assumed  new  freedoms; 
politics  became  the  theme  of  all  societies,  male  and 
female,  and  a  very  extensive  and  zealous  party  was 
formed,  which  acquired  the  appellation  of  the 
Patriotic  party,  who,  sensible  of  the  abusive  govern- 
ment under  which  they  lived,  sighed  for  occasions  of 
reforming  it."  And  again,  "The  appeal  to  the  rights 
of  man,  which  had  been  made  in  the  United  States, 
was  taken  up  by  France,  first  of  the  European  na- 


214  The  Heritage  in  Common: 

tions.  So  inscrutable  is  the  arrangement  of  causes 
and  consequences  in  this  world,  that  a  two-penny 
duty  on  tea,  unjustly  imposed  in  a  sequestered  part 
of  it,  changes  the  condition  of  all  its  inhabitants." 
It  was  France,  then  a  despotism,  that  lent  us  La- 
fayette, and  Rochambeau  and  his  six  thousand 
Frenchmen,  "to  deal  England  a  blow  where  she 
would  feel  it" — a  loan  ineffaceable  from  American 
memory.  It  was  Lafayette,  returning  to  France,  im- 
bued with  the  spirit  of  American  liberty,  who  in  1789, 
prepared,  and  proposed  to  the  National  Assembly, 
the  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man.  As  a  republic 
France  is  the  younger  sister  of  America. 

Of  the  triad  of  modern  democracies,  not  only  the 
French  Republic  but  the  union  of  free  common- 
wealths, styled  the  British  Empire,  is,  in  order  of 
historical  realization,  a  younger  sister  of  the  United 
States  of  America.  But  the  nursing  mother  of  all 
three  democracies  was  the  liberal  England  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  liberalism  at  death  grips  with 
the  autocratic  Stuarts.  During  the  last  ten  years 
of  the  preceding  century  that  liberalism,  long  con- 
ceived, had  at  last  found  constructive  philosophical 
expression  in  the  teachings  of  Richard  Hooker.  In 
Shakespeare  it  spoke  as  poetry;  in  Southampton 
and  Sandys  and  the  early  colonists,  as  practical 
experiment.  It  was  legally  defended  by  Coke  and 
Selden.  By  the-  popular  revolts  of  that  century,  it 
achieved  political  acceptance.  In  the  writings  of 
Milton,  Harrington,  Algernon  Sidney,  and  Locke. 


England,  America,  France  215 

it  was  re-created  for  new  and  greater  effort.  In  the 
century  that  followed,  that  liberalism,  embodied  in 
the  New  Whigs  at  home  and  in  the  patriots  of  the 
American  Revolution,  set  America  free,  assured  free 
government  for  Great  Britain  and  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  a  saner  colonial  and  territorial  polity  for  the 
future.  Without  the  aid  of  the  noble  Frenchmen — 
Beaumarchais,  Lafayette,  Rochambeau,  St.  Simon, 
de  Grasse,  America  might  not  have  gained  her  in- 
dependence. The  liberalism  of  those  men,  and  of  the 
French  philosophers  of  political  reform,  was  of 
mingled  efflorescence;  but  the  seed  was  in  the  liberal- 
ism of  Hooker,  of  his  disciples,  Shakespeare's  friends, 
and  of  Shakespeare  himself.  It  flamed  into  first 
bloom  with  the  Great  Rebellion  and  the  Common- 
wealth; into  second,  with  the  English  Revolution  and 
with  Locke.  By  precept  and  example  alike  English 
liberalism,  in  the  closing  years  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  fired  the  leaders  of  the  French  Revolution 
and  pointed  the  path  for  the  French  Republic  of  the 
present  day. 


2i6  The  Meaning  for  Us  Today 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   MEANING   FOR   US   TODAY 

SINCE  the  two-penny  duty  on  tea  and  the  shot 
heard  round  the  world  from  Concord,  a  hundred  and 
forty  years  have  passed;  and  again  inscrutable  is  the 
arrangement  of  causes  and  consequences  in  the  his- 
tory of  freedom.  An  assassin's  bullet  at  Serajevo 
furnishes  the  military  despotisms  of  Central  Europe 
with  a  pretext  to  unleash  east,  west,  and  south,  the 
hounds  of  territorial  conquest  and  tyrannic  lust. 
All  proposals  for  conference  are  rejected  by  the 
Central  Powers.  Serbia,  appealing  to  the  bar  of 
nations,  is  attacked  by  Austria  abetted  by  Germany. 
Russia,  neither  desirous  of  war  nor  ready  for  it,  still 
hoping  for  a  peaceful  settlement  mobilizes  to  fulfil 
her  treaty  obligations  by  a  powerless  protege,  and  is 
countered  by  Germany  armed  to  the  teeth  and  ful- 
minating ultimatums  at  just  the  moment  when  her 
ally  is  disposed  to  conciliation.  The  carnage  is  let 
loose.  That  democratic  France  may  be  bled  to  the 
white,  the  solemn  stipulations  of  international  law 
and  the  sanctions  of  humanity  are  cast  to  the  winds 
by  the  Central  Powers;  and  Germany  as  an  incident 
tramples  Belgium,  "the  suffering  servant  of  the 
great  community  of  mankind,"  raped,  mutilated, 


The  Meaning  for  Us  Today  217 

murdered,  into  the  blood-stained  earth.  Britain, 
mindful  of  her  pledges,  her  democratic  faith,  her 
duty  to  the  larger  liberty,  springs  to  arms.  The 
conflict  involves  Europe,  Asia,  Africa — the  dominions 
in  both  hemispheres.  To  the  powers  of  ruthless  and 
unbridled  might,  now  drunk  with  blood,  the  con- 
ventions of  belligerents,  the  safeguards  of  non- 
combatants,  the  privileges  of  neutrals,  are  as  nothing. 
Hell  belches  its  poisonous  gases  and  liquid  fire.  The 
flag  of  truce  is  desecrated;  physicians  abandon  their 
wounded  prisoners  to  the  onslaught  of  infectious 
disease.  The  dying  and  the  ministrants  of  the  cross 
are  marked  for  slaughter.  Death,  for  no  conceivable 
military  advantage,  is  rained  upon  country-side, 
hamlet,  unfortified  town.  Peasants  and  artisans — 
old  men  and  women,  helpless  youths  and  maidens — 
are  shot  in  squads  or  deported  into  slavery  worse 
than  death.  Conspiracies  are  launched  against 
peoples  at  peace  and  in  amity.  Hospital  ships, 
neutral  ships,  American  ships,  noncombatant  ships, 
unarmed  and  unwarned,  are  wantonly  destroyed. 
Mother  and  babe  and  sister  of  mercy  sink;  the  cry 
of  the  drowning  is  mocked.  Terror  walks  the  earth. 
Brutality  rules  the  waves. 

Inscrutable  indeed  is  the  arrangement  of  causes 
and  consequences  in  this  world.  A  shot  is  fired  in 
Bosnia;  and  the  exultant  autocracies  wreck  civiliza- 
tion. America  protesting  is  flouted  and  attacked, 
driven  to  defend  herself, — and  accorded,  at  last,  her 
chance  to  repay  some  fraction  of  the  debt  long  due 


21 8  The  Meaning  for  Us  Today 

to  France,  her  justification  to  rescue  for  England, 
to  consecrate  anew  for  herself,  the  Anglo-Saxon 
heritage.  Questioning  long,  tried  to  the  verge  of 
patience  and  of  honor,  calmly  deliberating,  without 
rancor,  or  thought  of  personal  gain  other  than  the 
preservation  of  her  independence  and  international 
prerogative,  she  ranges  herself.  Dignified  and 
powerful  beyond  all  dream  of  her  English  lovers 
and  champions  of  1769,  America  "with  freedom 
and  firmness,  asserts  her  rights  and  vindicates  her 
liberties" — not  "at  the  bar  of  England,"  as  that 
grand  old  colonel  of  the  eighteenth  century  House 
of  Commons  had  dreamed,  nor  of  any  earthly  Power; 
not  for  herself  alone  but  for  mankind,  at  the  bar 
of  universal  justice.  With  England  and  France  and 
the  free  peoples  of  the  world  she  has  "the  spirit  to 
fight  the  battle,"  to  sustain  for  posterity  the  cause 
of  righteousness,  peace,  democracy,  "hard  pressed 
by  a  prevailing  foe." 

The  humanism  of  Shakespeare  and  Hooker  and 
the  founders  of  colonial  liberty  in  America,  the 
humanism  of  their  colonial  successors  and  of  the 
Revolutionary  perpetuators  of  Anglo-Saxon  liberty, 
called  for  the  well-rounded  man.  It  called  for  the 
man  of  intellect  and  vigor,  emotionalized,  and  is- 
suing in  freedom, — in  character  with  its  moral  im- 
plications, standards,  and  responsibilities.  It  called 
for  the  character  that  should  promote  the  humani- 
ties of  life.  The  intellectual  arrogance  that  dis- 


The  Meaning  for  Us  Today  219 

tinguishes  the  prevailing  foe  today  found  no  place 
in  Shakespeare's  microcosm  of  human  worth;  nor 
has  it  found  acceptance  in  Shakespeare's  England 
or  in  any,  modern  democracy,  monarchical  or  re- 
publican, of  civilized  ideals.  Civilized  ideals  are 
not  skin-deep.  Civilization  is  not  a  creature  of 
self-interest  or  a  vizard  to  force.  It  cannot  be  called 
into  existence  by  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  highly 
specialized  education,  by  inculcation  of  a  goose- 
step,  authority  of  a  sabre,  contempt  of  the  poor  in 
spirit  and  pure  of  heart.  Civilization  is  born  of  per- 
sonal dignity  and  human  sympathy.  It  is  ingrained 
by  centuries  of  kindly  manners  and  consideration 
of  the  other  and  the  weak.  Its  ideals  are  not  as- 
sumed :  they  are  the  breath  of  its  nostrils,  the  vision 
of  its  heart;  they  fill  the  spaces  of  the  soul.  The 
ideals  of  the  prevailing  foe  today  are  those  of  their 
forbears,  the  Teutonic  Knights  of  the  Middle  Ages 
who,  "converting"  the  pagans  of  Prussia,  despoiled 
them,  of  honor  and  property,  and  bequeathed  to 
them  the  heritage  of  morals  and  manners  by  which 
they  are  known  among  nations  today.  The  ideals  of 
the  Teutonic  Knights  are  realized  anew  in  Northern 
France  and  Belgium,  Serbia  and  Poland,  in  the  year 
of  grace,  1917. 

The  cult  of  the  acquisitive  intellect  whether  for 
the  enforcement  of  a  civilization  in  veneer  or  for  the 
development  of  technical,  professional,  commercial, 
or  political  efficiency,  cannot  but  abase  the  con- 
science and  heart:  cannot  but  entail  the  overlord- 


22O  The  Meaning  for  Us  Today 

ship  of  power,  with  cunning  as  its  satellite.  The 
worship  of  mere  intellect  is  absolutely  repugnant  to 
the  Anglo-American  conception  of  manhood — of 
truth,  right,  and  fellow-feeling,  commingled  for  the 
good  of  the  individual  and  of  society.  Out  of  rela- 
tion to  these,  mentality  becomes  illogical,  goes  insane, 
perpetrates  crime  disgusting,  unspeakable,  attains 
its  climax  in  suicide. 

Shakespeare  and  the  founders  of  our  liberty  re- 
garded with  reprobation  the  Machiavellianism  of 
their  day,  that  the  end  justifies  the  means:  the  end 
— the  pagan  glory  of  the  state,  nay  of  the  Prince; 
the  means — the  exaltation  of  the  expedient  over 
the  right.  With  like  reprobation,  they  would,  if 
living  now,  regard  a  dynastic  philosophy  by  which 
in  a  certain  quarter  of  the  globe  intellect  has  been 
fostered  as  intellect-for-greed,  and  federalized  as 
intellect-for-power,  to  the  suppression  of  individual 
liberty  in  action  and  opinion,  the  suppression  of  the 
individual  moral  code,  the  suppression  of  spon- 
taneous and  enlightened  sympathy,  and  of  a  self- 
ordered  and  self-governing  national  conscience.  In 
the  Anglo-American  consciousness  there  can  be 
found  no  condonation  for  a  state-craft  by  which 
intellect-for-power  has  been  apotheosized;  for  an 
educational  priest-craft  by  which  war  has  been 
ritualized  as  the  highest  activity  of  the  state;  no 
palliation  for  national  servility  to  the  right  of  the 
state  alone — to  a  right  divine  of  a  state  that  is  law 
unto  itself,  and  therefore  above  Law.  Where  the 


The  Meaning  for  Us  Today  221 

sophistry  of  intellect  deploys  in  a  void,  its  expedi- 
ency, its  "Necessity,"  is  self-evoked  and  self-created. 
When  that  state  wrecks  "the  married  calm  of 
states,"  every  instrument  of  success  becomes  a 
legitimate  weapon,  and  the  frightfulness  of  modern 
scientific  ingenuity  deploys  in  the  flesh.  Where 
there  is  no  divinity  but  that  of  the  coterie,  oligarchy 
or  dynastic  house,  that  calls  itself  the  state,  there 
is  no  divinity  of  universal  justice  and  universal  grace, 
and  therefore  no  humanity.  In  such  a  nation,  there 
is  developed  a  condition  of  political  psychology 
incomprehensible  to  the  rest  of  mankind.  Its  Neces- 
sity justifies  a  deliberate  reversion  to  barbarism,  a 
carnival  of  blood  and  lies,  a  sniveling  hypocrisy 
that  would  fail  to  hoodwink  the  veriest  imbecile  in 
any  of  God's  asylums  of  the  free.  That  such  subter- 
fuge should  convince  those  who  have  inherited  the 
ill-gotten  gains  of  Frederick  II  and  of  Bismarck 
does  not  surprise.  That  it  should  delude  the  coun- 
trymen of  Luther,  of  Goethe,  is  a  portent.  Luther 
was  not  a  Prussian,  Goethe  was  not  a  Prussian. 
The  heart  of  the  reformer  for  whom  justification 
was  in  faith,  the  heart  of  the  noblest  humanist  of 
the  latter  age — if  a  throb  still  stir  those  hearts,  it 
is  of  revulsion  that  their  Germany  should  be  under 
the  heel  of  the  Junker. 

Shakespeare's  ideal  state  is,  as  I  have  tried  to 
show,  a  state  where  freemen  render  service,  each 
in  his  due  degree,  and  each  protected  in  his  service 
by  common  interest  and  right.  "Every  subject's 


222  The  Meaning  for  Us  Today 

duty  is  the  king's;  but  every  subject's  soul  is  his 
own."  Shakespeare's  state,  in  its  relation  with  other 
states,  is  bounded  by  legal  sanction  and  regulated 
by  Justice.  His  great  contemporary,  the  philos- 
opher of  that  patriotic  movement  from  which 
America  derived  its  ideals  of  individual  and  national 
liberty  and  of  fraternity  with  mankind,  was  of  like 
opinion.  Of  the  Law  of  Nations,  Richard  Hooker 
had  written,  "There  is  no  reason  that  any  one  com- 
monwealth of  itself  should  to  the  prejudice  of  an- 
other annihilate  that  whereupon  the  whole  world 
hath  agreed."  Precisely  of  such  a  state,  not  a  com- 
monwealth but  a  military  despotism  and  a  menace 
to  mankind,  annihilating  that  whereupon  the  world 
hath  agreed,  it  is,  that  Shakespeare  prophesied: 

Then  everything  includes  itself  in  power, 
Power  into  will,  will  into  appetite, 
And  appetite  an  universal  wolf, 
So  doubly  seconded  with  will  and  power, 
Must  make  perforce  an  universal  prey, 
And  last  eat  up  himself. 

From  the  ten  thousand  British  men  and  women 
who  came  to  New  England  between  1620  and  1640, 
some  fifteen  million  Americans  today  are  descended. 
From  the  forty  thousand  Britons  who  between  1607 
and  1670  settled  in  Virginia,  and  from  their  brothers 
who  colonized  the  South,  some  thirty  million  Amer- 
icans are  descended.  From  the  other  Britons  who 
made  America  their  home  before  and  after  1776, 


The  Meaning  for  Us  Today  223 

perhaps  fifteen  millions  more.  All  in  all,  from  fifty- 
five  to  sixty  millions  of  our  one  hundred  million  are 
exclusively  or  predominantly  British  in  blood.  To 
these  must  be  added  the  descendants  of  the  Dutch, 
the  Swedes,  the  Germans,  who  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  and  in  the  eighteenth  before  1764,  accept- 
ing British  rule  and  law  and  speech,  became  one 
folk  with  the  Britons  in  America  and  enriched  the 
American  spirit  with  strains  of  liberality  and  tolera- 
tion. Of  these,  thousands,  like  Herkimer  and 
Miihlenberg  in  the  War  of  Independence,  stood 
side  by  side  with  Washington. 

Since  then,  and  down  to  1870,  those,  and  other 
Europeans  who  have  found  a  refuge  here  from  the 
duresse  of  poverty,  social  or  legal  oppression,  reli- 
gious, political,  or  military  tyranny,  have  gloried  in 
identifying  themselves  with  the  inheritors  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  blood  and  speech,  common  law,  individual 
freedom  and  national  responsibility.  If  it  be  true 
that,  during  the  past  generation,  we  have  with  too 
light  scrutiny  admitted  to  our  large  freedom  and 
easy  fatness  tens  of  thousands  whose  hands  grasp 
our  privileges,  but  whose  hearts  still  cherish  the 
superstitions  of  the  political  inhumanity  from  which 
we  thought  they  had  escaped,  who  is  to  blame?  If 
it  be  true  that  we  have  admitted  tens  of  thousands 
who,  crazed  with  license,  leap  to  the  torch  and  bomb 
and  in  the  name  of  liberty  flaunt  the  rag  of  anarchy, 
who  is  to  blame?  If  we  have  admitted  one  hundred 
thousand  ignorant  of  what  America  means,  and  if 


224  The  Meaning  for  Us  Today 

we  acquiesce  in  that  ignorance,  who  is  to  blame? 
Have  we  too  faintly  realized  our  obligation  to  in- 
struct them  in  the  history,  the  principles,  and.  the 
duty  of  our  large  freedom,  the  blame  is  ours.  The 
time  has  come  for  searching  of  the  heart,  for  open 
speech;  for  patient  leading  toward  the  light;  for 
exercise  of  American  discipline;  for  maintenance 
of  American  prerogative  and  dignity.  The  day  of 
reckoning  is  upon  us:  conscious  of  shortcomings 
and  with  humility  we  face  it — but  without  fear. 
Not  only  the  Anglo-Saxon  majority  of  the  American 
people  but  the  whole  people,  in  one  historic  and 
moral  consciousness  and  one  national  ideal  of  de- 
mocracy finding  its  soul,  goes  forth  to  try  that  soul, 
to  purge  it,  to  make  it  real  for  humanity.  Our 
American  heritage  is  of  the  revolutionary  fathers, 
of  the  colonial  fathers,  of  the  English  founders  of 
colonial  liberty — the  contemporaries  and  friends  of 
the  poet  and  prophet  of  the  race.  A  nation  of  such 
inheritance  and  such  hope,  can  it  for  a  moment 
tolerate  influence  or  policy  or  aim  subversive  of  the 
humanity  cherished  by  the  race  for  ages  immemorial? 
We  of  the  blood,  custom,  law, — 

We  must  be  free  or  die,  who  speak  the  tongue 
That  Shakespeare  spake. 


APPENDIX 

A.  Significant  Letters,  Pamphlets,  and  Other  Data, 
Relative  to  the  Expedition  of  1609. 

1.  "A  Letter  of  M.  Gabriel  Archer,  touching  the  Voyage 
of  the  Fleet  of  Ships,  which  arrived  at  Virginia,  without 
Sir  Tho.  Gates,  and  Sir  George  Summers,  1609."    Archer 
was  recorder  of  the  first  colony  in  Virginia.    The  letter, 
apparently  to  the  council  at  home,  is  of  Aug.  31,  1609,  and 
reached  England  late  in  October.     It  conveyed  the  first 
tidings  of  the  tempest  of  June  24.    It  speaks  of  the  "con- 
tentions, factions,  and  partakings"  in  the  colony  due  to 
the  non-arrival  of  Gates.    Printed  in  1625  in  Purchas  his 
Pilgrimes  (Ed.  1906,  XIX,  1-4).    See  also  Brown,  Genesis, 

I,  327-332. 

2.  Vessels  begin  to   return  from  Virginia  late  in  No- 
vember, 1609.     Sir  Thomas  Gates  and  the  Sea- Venture 
supposed  lost.    Genesis,  I,  332-333. 

3.  Letter  of  John  Radclyffe  "To  the  Right  Hoble  Earle 
of  Salisburye,  Lord  high  Treasurer  of  England."    Dated 
from  James towne,  this  4th  of  October,  1609.    Gates  and 
Summers  not  yet  heard  of.    Captain  John  Smith  reigning 
as  sole  governor;  but  "This  man  is  sent  home  to  answere 
some  misdemeanors."    George  Percy,  president;  lack  of 
victuals.     Letter  arrived  late  in  November,  1609.     Not 
published  at  the  time.    In  State  Papers  (Colonial)  James 
I,  Vol.  I,  no.  XIX,  Genesis,  I,  335~33S,  and  Proceedings 
of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  Worcester,  October, 
1870,  the  Letter  is  given  in  full. 

225 


226  Appendix 

4.  "A  True  and  Sincere  Declaration  of  the  Purpose  and 
Ends  of  the  Plantation  begun  in  Virginia."     See  p.  45,  ante. 
By  the  authority  of  the  Council.     S.  R.  Dec.  14,  1609. 
Published  immediately,  as  of  1610.    The  "terrible  tem- 
pest"; Gates  and  his  company  still  missing. 

5.  "A  Publication  of  the  Counsell  of  Virginea,  touching 
the   Plantation  there."     Broadside,   printed    1610.     See 
p.  46,  ante.    Published  about  the  same  time  as  no.  4. 
Reprinted,  Genesis,  I,  354-356. 

6.  A  Sermon  of  W.  Crashaw,  preached  in  London  before 
Lord  De  la  Warr,  Feb.  21,  1610,  at  his  leave-taking  for 
Virginia  as  Lord  Governor.    Published  with  approval  of 
the  council,  March  19,  1610,  under  the  title  "A  New- 
yeeres   Gift  to  Virginea."    For  extracts  see  Genesis,  I, 

360-375- 

7.  De  la  Warr  sails  for  Virginia,  April  I,  1610.    Gates, 
etc.,  not  yet  heard  of.    Genesis,  I,  388. 

8.  Gates,  Somers,  and  their  shipwrecked  company  sail 
from  Bermuda,  May  10,  and  reach  Jamestown,  May  23, 
1610.    Gates  finds  all  things  "full  of  misery  and  misgovern- 
ment,"  and  assumes  control,  George  Percy  giving  up  his 
commission.    See  no.  II,  below. 

9.  De  la  Warr  arrives,  June  6,  just  as  Gates  is  abandon- 
ing the  colony.    De  la  Warr  takes  over  the  governorship 
and,  June  12,  appoints  of  his  council,  Gates,   Somers, 
Percy,  Wenman,  Newport,  William  Strachey  (secretary 
and  recorder).    See  no.  n,  below. 

10.  July  15,  1610,  Gates  and  Newport  sail  for  England 
(see  no.  II,  below),  bearing  the  following  letters  (nos.  II, 
12,  13).    Silvester  Jourdan,  who  wrote  no.  14,  undoubtedly 
returned  in  the  same  vessel. 

11.  William  Strachey's  Letter  from  Jamestown  to  an 
"Excellent  Lady"  in  England,  beginning  with  events  of 


Appendix  227 

June  2,  1609,  ending  July  15,  1610,  and  sent  that  day  with 
Gates  to  England.  Not  published  till  1625,  and  then  as 
"A  True  Repertory,"  etc.  See  pp.  49-53,  ante. 

12.  A  letter  from  Lord  De  la  Warr  to  the  Earl  of  Salis- 
bury.   "  Sir  Thomas  Gates,  the  bearer  thereof."    Events 
of  De  la  Warr's  voyage  and  his  arrival  in  Virginia.    "James 
Towne  ...  a  verie  noysome  and  unholsome  place  oc- 
casioned much  bie  the  mortalitie  and  Idlenes  of  our  owne 
people."     Gates  is  "best  able  to  Informe."    The  letter 
is  indorsed  by  Salisbury's  secretary — "Received  in  Sep- 
tember,   1610."     Printed   for   first   time,    State   Papers 
(Colonial)  James  I,  vol.  I,  no.  xxii;  also  in  Genesis,  I,  413- 

415. 

13.  From  the  Lord  De  la  Warr  to  the  Patentees  in 
England.    This  despatch,  known  also  as  "Letter  of  the 
Governor  and  Council  of  Virginia  to  the  Virginia  Company 
of  London,"  is  dated  July  7,  1610.    It  is  drawn  up  by 
Strachey  as  secretary  and  includes  portions  of  no.  n, 
above.    Sent  with  Gates.    Not  published  till  1849  (Hak- 
luyt  Society).    Also  in  Genesis,  I,  402-413.    See  pp.  51- 
52,  ante. 

14.  Silvester   Jourdan's    "A    Discovery  of    the   Bar- 
mudas."    Author's  dedication  to  Master  John  Fitz  James, 
Esquire,  is  dated  October  13,   1610.     Printed  by  John 
Windet,  London,  1610.    Reprinted  in  1613  in  "A  plaine 
Description  of  the  Barmudas."     See  no.  10,  above,  and 
pp.  45,  48,  ante;  also  Genesis,  I,  419;  II,  620-621. 

15.  "A  True  Declaration  of  the  Estate  of  the  Colony 
of  Virginia,  etc."    S.  R.  Nov.  8,  1610.    Published  by  order 
of  the  council,  London:  1610.     Based  upon  Strachey's 
Letter  (no.  n,  above)  and  Gates'  Report  upon  Oath  to 
the  Council.    See  pp.  46,  48-53,  ante. 

16.  "Newes  from  Virginia."    A  ballad  of  the  voyage, 


228  Appendix 

the  shipwreck,  the  Bermudas,  the  arrival  in  Virginia  and 
the  return  of  Gates  to  England.  By  R.  Rich,  Gent,  one 
of  the  voyage.  Published,  London:  1610,  sold  by  John 
Wright.  See  Genesis,  I,  420-426,  for  copy.  Also,  prob- 
ably by  the  same  versifier,  since  he  promises  "the  same 
worke  more  at  large,"  "A  ballad  called  the  last  News  from 
Virginia,"  entered  at  Stationers'  Hall  by  the  same  book- 
seller, Aug.  1 6,  161 1.  I  know  of  no  copy  extant. 

17.  A  letter  of  De  la  Warr  to  Salisbury,  after  his  return 
to  England  in  1611.  Dated  June  22.  Printed  in  State 
Papers  (Domestic),  and  in  Genesis,  I,  476-477.  Also  "A 
short  Relation  made  by  the  Right  Honourable  the  Lord 
De  la  Warr"  to  the  Council,  June  25,  1611,  "touching  his 
unexpected  returne  home."  Published  by  authority  of  the 
Council  (S.  R.  July  6),  1611.  Purchas,  XIX,  85-90; 
Genesis,  I,  477-483. 

As  stated  in  the  body  of  this  volume,  the  only  manu- 
scripts and  pamphlets  in  the  foregoing  list  that  could  have 
been  of  service  to  Shakespeare  in  the  composition  of  The 
Tempest  are  4,  n,  14,  and  15.  Later  manuscripts  up  to 
February,  1613,  such  as  the  letters  of  Dale  to  the  Council, 
May  25,  1611,  and  to  Salisbury,  Aug.  17,  1611  (the  latter 
with  all  Strachey's  earmarks),  Spelman's  "Relation"  of 
events  from  1609  to  1611,  Strachey's  "Historic  of  Travaile 
into  Virginia"  of  1612,  Whitaker's  "Good  News  from 
Virginia"  of  1612  (published  about  March,  1613)  contain 
nothing  to  our  purpose.  Nor  do  works  printed  between 
1611  and  February,  1613:  for  instance,  "For  the  Colony 
in  Virginea  Britannia,  Lawes  Divine,  Morall  and  Martiall," 
1612;  "The  New  Life  of  Virginea,"  1612;  and  the  two  "Ox- 
ford Tracts"  justifying  Captain  John  Smith's  career  in 
the  colony,  published  at  Oxford  in  1612.  Of  these,  one  is 
"A  Map  of  Virginia  with  a  description  of  the  Country, 


Appendix  229 

etc.  .  .  .  written  by  Captaine  Smith";  the  other,  "The 
Proceedings  of  the  English  Colonie  in  Virginia  since  their 
first  beginning  .  .  .  1606  till  this  present  1612,  etc.," 
from  the  writings  of  observers  in  Virginia.  "By  W.  S." 
W.  S.  is  not,  as  averred  by  Malone  (Shakespeare,  XV,  390) 
and  by  Major  (Introduction  to  Strachey's  Travaile  into 
Virginia,  p.  viii),  "W.  Strachey."  Others  following  the 
false  clue,  as  for  instance  Furness,  The  Tempest  (Vario- 
rum, IX,  313)  are  tempted  to  identify  "The  Proceedings" 
by  "  W.  S,"  printed  1612,  with  Strachey's  True  Repertory; 
and  hence  the  misleading  tradition  that  the  True  Reper- 
tory was  published  in  1612.  The  "W.  S."  above  was  the 
Rev.  Dr.  William  Symonds  who  delivered  the  sermon 
"Virginea  Britannia"  before  the  company  of  adventurers 
and  planters,  at  Whitechapel,  April  25,  1609.  He  was  a 
constant  advocate  of  John  Smith.  See  Eggleston,  The 
Beginners  of  a  Nation,  p.  66,  and  Brown,  Genesis,  II,  597- 
601. 

B.  The  True  Declaration;  the  Despatch;  the  True 
Repertory. 

If  the  reader  will  turn  to  the  selections  from  the  latter 
part  of  the  True  Declaration  given  by  Purchas  at  the  end 
of  Strachey's  "Letter,"  or  True  Repertory,  XIX,  67-72, 
he  will  notice  that  the  passage  from  the  Declaration,  68, 
" rather  than  they  would  go  a  stone's  cast  to  fetch  wood" 
agrees  with  Strachey's  De  la  Warr  "Despatch"  (Hakluyt 
Society,  Hist.  Travaile  into  Virginia,  1849,  p.  xxvi)  and 
that  the  passage,  from  the  Declaration,  67,  about  "the 
ground  of  all  those  miseries"  and  "every  man  would  be  a 
Commander"  is  paralleled  in  the  "Despatch,"  xxxii- 
xxxiv,  but  not  verbally.  On  the  other  hand  the  former 
passage  (Declaration,  68)  is  drawn  verbally  from  Strach- 


230  Appendix 

ey's  True  Repertory,  45;  and  the  Declaration  passage, 
from  "  the  ground  of  all  those  miseries  "  to  "  the  f ruites  of 
too  deare-bought  repentance,"  is  based  upon  the  Reper- 
tory, 46-48,  60.  The  passage  in  the  Declaration,  68-70, 
about  the  treasons,  the  covetousness  in  the  mariners,  the 
trucking  for  corn  with  the  Indians,  down  to  "would  not 
now  obtaine  so  much  as  a  pottle"  is  drawn,  in  spots  verb- 
ally, from  the  True  Repertory,  50-51.  The  information 
about  the  "Sturgion"  is  based  upon  Repertory,  52.  In 
the  True  Declaration,  a  little  further  on,  the  "brackish 
water  of  James  fort"  is  mentioned.  This  is  based  upon 
Reportory,  58.  The  accompanying  comparison  between 
"the  fennes  and  marshes"  of  Jamestown  and  the  Wilds 
of  Kent  is  drawn  almost  verbatim  from  Reportory,  58-59. 
Numerous  other  sentences  and  phrases  of  the  Declaration 
come  from  the  Reportory. 

The  first  part  of  the  True  Declaration  is  most  readily 
accessible  in  Malone,  Variorum  Shakespeare,  XV,  or  in 
Furness,  Variorum,  IX.  If  the  reader  will  compare  that 
with  the  corresponding  sections  of  the  Reportory  dealing 
with  the  storm  and  the  description  of  the  Bermudas,  he 
will  find  some  fifteen  precise  coincidences  of  detail  or  of 
speech  not  duplicated  in  Jourdan's  Discovery.  From  the 
Discovery,  this  part  of  the  Declaration  draws,  however, 
or  appears  to  draw,  five  phrases  that  have  no  exact  parallel 
in  the  Reportory.  These  are  "Summers  descryed  land"; 
"the  ship  fell  betwixt  two  rockes,  that  caused  her  to  stand 
firme";  "an  inchaunted  pile  of  rockes";  "unspoyled  vic- 
tuals and  tackling";  "to  sustaine  nature."  The  Re- 
portory and  the  Discovery,  as  I  have  said  in  the  text, 
agree  in  the  report  of  some  salient  facts,  but  they  have  no 
community  of  literary  style.  The  Despatch  has  nothing 
about  the  storm. 


Appendix  23 1 

C.  The  Excellent  Lady. 

The  Lady  to  whom  Strachey's  letter  is  addressed  was 
vitally  concerned  in  the  prosperity  of  the  plantation.  Her 
husband  is  nowhere  mentioned;  but  among  the  patentees 
of  1609  there  were  no  women  in  their  own  right,  and  the 
informations  imparted  to  this  woman  are  more  than  once 
of  a  kind  that  could  be  imparted  only  to  one  in  close  touch 
with  the  Virginia  Council.  She  was  evidently  the  wife  of 
one  of  the  more  important  patentees  of  1609;  not,  however, 
of  one  of  the  eight  earls  who  head  the  list,  for  she  is  nowhere 
styled  "most  noble."  She  is  entitled  "your  Ladiship," 
"Noble"  and,  twice,  "right  Noble  Ladie"— of  which  the 
last,  if  it  is  not  merely  an  epithet,  would,  according  to 
Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  custom,  indicate  rank  below 
that  of  Countess.  Of  the  thirteen  succeeding  peers  in  the 
list  of  1609  ten  are  members  of  the  council.  Of  the  ten, 
or  for  that  matter  all  thirteen,  the  most  likely  to  satisfy 
the  stipulations  is  Theophilus  (since  1603,  Baron)  Howard 
of  Walden,  eldest  son  of  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Suffolk. 
Both  father  and  son  were  substantial  investors  in  the 
Company  and  members  of  the  Council  in  1609.  The  wife 
of  Lord  Howard  of  Walden  was  Elizabeth,  daughter  of 
George  Hume,  Earl  of  Dunbar.  Their  country  seat  was 
near  the  village  of  Saffron  Walden  in  Essex,  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  best  authority,  appears  to  have  been  the 
home  of  Strachey  himself.  The  easy,  conversational,  and 
sometimes  personal  tone  of  Strachey's  letter  indicates 
familiar  acquaintance  with  his  correspondent.  On  only 
one  occasion  does  he  specify  the  previous  habitat  of  any 
person  connected  with  the  voyage  or  with  Virginia,  and 
that  is  when  he  tells  her  ladyship,  as  a  matter  of  interest  to 
both  of  them,  that  one  of  the  Bermuda  mutineers,  John 
Want,  was  "an  Essex  man  of  Newport  by  Saffronwalden." 


232  Appendix 

It  may  be  worth  recalling  that  Hakluyt,  who  obtained 
possession  of  the  letter  to  the  Excellent  Lady,  was  long 
associated  with  the  Howards,  as  a  protege  of  the  house.  In 
1598  he  had  dedicated  the  second  edition  of  his  Navigations 
to  one  of  the  kin,  Charles  Howard,  Earl  of  Nottingham; 
and  he  was,  from  1605  on,  rector  of  Wetheringset  in  Suffolk, 
not  far  from  Saffron  Walden. 

D.  Bacon  and  the  Liberal  Movement. 

Bacon  became  member  of  the  Council  for  the  Virginia 
Company  in  1609.  The  charters  of  that  year  and  of  1612, 
drafted  by  Sandys,  were  prepared  for  the  king's  signature 
by  Sir  Henry  Hobart  and  Sir  Francis  Bacon.  To  Bacon's 
interest  in  the  colony  testimony  is  borne  by  William 
Strachey  in  the  Dedication  (1618)  of  a  manuscript  copy 
of  his  Historic  of  Travaile  into  Virginia  Britannia: l 
"Your  Lordship  ever  approving  yourself  a  most  noble  fau- 
tor  [favorer]  of  the  Virginia  Plantation,  being  from  the 
beginning  (with  other  lords  and  carles)  of  the  principal 
counsell  applyed  to  propagate  and  guide  yt."  In  his 
speech  of  January  30,  1621,  in  the  House  of  Commons  on 
the  benefits  of  the  king's  government  occurs  the  famous 
passage,  "This  kingdom  now  first  in  his  Majesty's  Times 
hath  gotten  a  lot  or  portion  in  the  New  World  by  the 
plantation  of  Virginia  and  the  Summer  Islands.  And 
certainly  it  is  with  the  kingdoms  on  earth  as  it  is  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven;  sometimes  a  grain  of  mustard-seed 
proves  a  great  tree."  A  figure  already  used  in  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  Declaration  of  the  Virginia  Council  of  1609. 
In  Bacon's  essay  Of  Plantations,  completed  probably 

1  Sloane  MS.,  No.  1622.  An  earlier  copy  dedicated  to  Sir 
Allen  Apsley,  between  1612  and  1616,  in  Ashmolean  MS., 
No.  1754. 


Appendix  233 

after  1622,  and  not  published  till  after  his  death,  there  ap- 
pears to  be  unanimity  of  practical  policy  with  that  of  the 
Sandys  party  in  the  council:  the  shamefulness  of  plant- 
ing with  "the  scum  of  the  people";  the  need  of  centralized 
but  not  arbitrary  government;  the  sinfulness  of  forsaking 
"a  plantation  once  in  forwardness."  When  it  suited  his 
political  purpose  or  when  some  shadow  of  liberal  conces- 
sion was  harmless,  Bacon  may  have  collaborated  with 
Sandys;  but  his  interest  in  the  colony  was  romantic  and 
always  for  the  glorification  of  the  Crown.  "He  had  no 
insight  into  the  strength  and  value  of  the  newer  currents 
that  were  bearing  his  countrymen  in  the  direction  of  a 
wider  and  more  assured  liberty."  In  some  of  his  Essays 
he  professes  to  regard  the  state  as  an  organic  unity  of 
king  and  parliament.  But  in  others  he  is  an  outspoken 
absolutist:  the  state  is  sovereign  in  both  religion  and 
politics;  those  who  would  subvert  the  government  or  de- 
pose a  king  "must  be  damned  and  sent  to  hell  forever." 
Of  self-government  or  of  education  toward  it  he  has  not 
the  faintest  glimmer.  In  his  communications  intended  for 
the  sovereign  he  is  not  only  absolutist  but  fulsome  to 
nauseation:  Elizabeth  has  power  to  enlarge  or  restrain; 
James  is  appointed  and  gifted  of  God,  his  prerogative  is 
unlimited.  Bacon  was  incapable  of  projecting  democratic 
government  at  home,  still  more  in  a  colony  beyond  the 
seas.1  It  is  inconceivable  that  friendship  or  unofficial 
intercourse  of  any  kind  should  have  existed  between 
Bacon  and  any  of  the  patriots  of  the  council,  such  as  South- 
ampton, who  had  followed  the  Earl  of  Essex  to  his  death; 
or  between  him  and  any  friend  of  Southampton,  like 
Shakespeare.  For  it  was  Bacon  who,  with  an  ingratitude 

1  See   Gooch,    Political    Thought    from   Bacon   to   Halifax, 
22-34. 


234  Appendix 

rarely  paralleled,  a  perfidy  to  all  the  instincts  of  friendship, 
and  a  superfluous  malignity — in  an  advocate  doubly 
unjustifiable,  had  in  1601  "exerted  his  professional  talents 
to  blacken  the  memory"  of  his  own  and  Southampton's 
friend,  the  Earl  of  Essex.  And  by  this  perfidy  he  had  en- 
sured the  conviction  of  Southampton  himself.  Though  a 
giant  among  scientific  philosophers,  Bacon  was  in  political 
vision  reactionary,  and  in  practice  both  self-seeking  and 
blind.  He  had  nothing  of  Hooker's  liberalism  or  Shake- 
speare's humanity.  "He  pushed  James  I  towards  a  col- 
lision that  could  only  end  in  disaster." 

£.  Indebtedness  to  Homer,  Boethius,  Chaucer. 

For  the  heroic  strand  of  his  Troilus  and  Cressida  Shake- 
speare had  recourse  to  Caxton's  account  of  the  siege  of 
Troy,  and  to  Homer.  The  speech  of  Ulysses  is  suggested 
by  the  second  book  of  the  Iliad.  Precisely  which  of  the 
accessible  translations,  Latin,  French  or  English,  Shake- 
peare  was  using  here — for  it  is  unlikely  that  he  went  to  the 
Greek — or  what  narrative  or  dramatic  manipulation  of  the 
story,  we  do  not  know.  Chapman,  whose  translation  of 
Books  I,  2,  7-11  had  been  published  in  1598,  could  not 
have  furnished  Shakespeare  with  the  knowledge  displayed 
in  the  drama  of  other  books  of  the  Iliad  than  these  seven.1 
But  in  Chapman's  second  book  we  find  what  may  have 
been  the  verbal  origin  of  Shakespeare's  "The  specialty 
of  rule  hath  been  neglected";  and  "the  unworthiest 
shows  as  fairly  in  the  mask."  Chapman's  Ulysses 
chiding  a  noisy,  discontented  Greek,  says  (Iliad,  II,  169- 
172)  — 

1  See  J.  S.  P.  Tatlock,  The  Siege  of  Troy  in  Elizabethan  Litera- 
ture, etc.  Publ.  Mod.  Lang.  Ass'n  of  America,  XXX,  4,  739 
el  scq. 


Appendix  235 

Stay,  wretch,  be  still, 
And  hear  thy  betters;  thou  art  base,  and  both  in  power 

and  skill 

Poor  and  unworthy,  without  name  in  council  or  in  war. 
We  must  not  all  be  kings.    The  rule  is  most  irregular, 
Where  many  rule.    One  lord,  one  king,  propose  to  thee; 

and  he, 
To  whom  wise  Saturn's  son  hath  given  both  law  and  em- 

pery 
To  rule  the  public,  is  that  king. 

And  from  Chapman's  translation,  a  hundred  lines  before, 
of  the  figure  of  the  bees  flocking  to  their  leaders,  Shake- 
speare may  have  derived  something: 

As  when  of  frequent  bees 

Swarms  rise  out  of  a  hollow  rock,  repairing  the  degrees 
Of  their  egression   endlessly,   with   ever  rising  new.  .  . 
They  still  crowd  out  so;  this  flock  here,  that  there,  be- 
labouring 
The  loaded  flowers;  so  from  their  ships  and  tents  the 

army's  store 
Trooped  to  these  princes  and  the  court. — 

From  this  Shakespeare  may  have  derived  something  of 
both  language  and  figure  in  the  continuation  of  his  Ulys- 
ses' speech.  For  instance,  the  "Grecian  tents  hollow  upon 
this  plain";  the  general  "like  the  hive  to  whom  the  for- 
agers repair";  even  the  suggestion  of  his  argument  con- 
cerning "degree," — though  Ulysses  uses  the  word  with 
a  broader  significance  than  Chapman,  who  himself  is 
elaborating  Homer's  simple  "tribes  of  thronging  bees 
issuing  always  anew." 

Whether  through  Chapman  or  not,  the  first  six  lines 


236  Appendix 

of  Shakespeare's  exposition  of  the  specialty  of  rule  (Troilus 
and  Cressida,  I,  iii,  78-83),  including  the  simile  of  the 
bees,  derive  not  from  Plato  or  the  Platonic  tradition,  as 
some  have  thought,  but  from  the  Iliad. 

If  Shakespeare  was  using  Chapman's  translation  of  the 
Iliad  he  must  have  read,  a  few  lines  after  the  passage 
about  "irregular  rule,"  the  words  (II.  II,  216-219)  with 
which  Ulysses  in  the  council  of  the  princes  prefaces  his 
cudgeling  of  Thersites: 

Not  a  worse  of  all  this  host  came  with  our  king  than  thee 
To  Troy's  great  siege;  then  do  not  take  into  that  mouth 

of  thine 

The  names  of  kings,  much  less  revile  the  dignities  that  shine 
In  their  supreme  states. 

Is  it  too  much  to  imagine  that  the  words  italicized  above 
recalled  to  Shakespeare's  mind  the  ancient  analogy — famil- 
iarized by  mediaeval  and  renaissance  philosophy — of  the 
celestial  dignities  performing  their  motions  in  wonted  order 
and  degree  and  held  in  harmony  by  the  bond  of  love? 

For  the  love-strand  of  his  play  the  dramatist  is  using 
Chaucer's  Troilus  and  Criseyde:  he  has  had  it  by  his  side 
while  writing  the  two  preceding  scenes  of  this  first  act. 
He  is  about  to  write  of  the  universe  held  together  by  the 
specialty  of  rule  and  of  the  wreck  that  ensues  when  rule 
is  disregarded.  He  turns  first  to  Troilus's  panegyric  of 
love  (Bk.  Ill,  stanzas  250-252),  and  reads — 

Love,  that  of  erthe  and  see  hath  governaunce, 
Love,  that  his  hestes  hath  in  hevene  hye, 
Love,  that  with  an  holsom  alliaunce 
Halt  peples  joyned,  as  him  lest  them  gye  .  .  . 


Appendix  237 

That  that  the  world  with  feyth,  which  that  is  stable, 

Dyverseth  so  his  stoundes  concordynge, 

That  elements  that  been  so  discordable 

Holden  a  bond  perpetuely  duringe, 

That  Phebus  mote  his  rosy  day  forth  bringe, 

And  that  the  mone  hath  lordship  over  the  nightes, 

Al  this  doth  Love;  ay  heried  be  his  mightes! 

That  that  the  see,  that  gredy  is  to  flowen, 

Constreyneth  to  a  certeyn  ende  so 

His  flodes,  that  so  fersly  they  ne  growen 

To  drenchen  erthe  and  al  for  ever-mo; 

And  if  that  Love  ought  lete  his  brydel  go, 

Al  that  now  loveth  a-sonder  sholde  lepe, 

And  lost  were  al,  that  Love  halt  now  to-hepe. 

From  this  passage  Shakespeare  turns  probably  to  the  orig- 
inal which  Chaucer  is  here  versifying,  Chaucer's  own 
translation  of  Boethius  De  Consolatione  Philosophic — 
it  is  in  the  folio  before  him,  Thynne's  of  1532  or  Speght's 
of  1598, — and  he  finds  (Bk.  II,  Metre  VIII)  one  or  two 
other  thoughts  and  expressions  that  catch  his  fancy: 
"so  that  it  is  nat  leveful  [for  the  see]  to  strecche  hise  brode 
termes  or  boundes  up-on  the  erthes,  that  is  to  seyn,  to 
covere  al  the  erthe;  al  this  acordaunce  of  thinges  is  boun- 
den  with  Love,  that  .  .  .  hath  also  commaundements  to  the 
hevenes.  And  yif  this  Love  slakede  the  brydeles,  alle 
thinges  that  now  loven  hem  to-gederes  wolden  maken  a 
bataile  continuely.  .  .  .  This  Love  halt  to-gideres  poeples 
joigned  with  an  holy  bond,  and  knitteth  sacrement  of  man- 
ages of  chaste  loves."  Or  again,  in  the  Boethius  (Bk.  IV, 
metre  VI),  he  may  note  "If  thou  wilt  demen  .  .  .  the 
rightes  or  the  lawes  of  the  heye  thonderer,  that  is  to  seyn, 


238  Appendix 

of  god  .  .  .  bihold  the  heightes  of  the  soverein  hevene. 
There  kepen  the  sterres  by  rightful  alliaunce  of  thinges, 
hir  olde  pees  .  .  .  And  thus  maketh  Love  entrechaunge- 
able  the  perdurable  courses;  and  thus  is  discordable 
bataile  y-put  out  of  the  contree  of  the  sterres";  or  the 
phraseology  "Amonges  thise  thinges  sitteth  the  heye  maker  ^ 
king  and  lord,  welle  and  beginninge,  lawe  and  wys  juge,  to 
don  equitee." 

Though  the  controlling  power  in  both  these  passages  is 
love,  that  love  is,  as  with  Shakespeare's  Ulysses,  law.  And 
if  it  were  not  ineffably  prosaic  to  attribute  Shakespeare's 
thoughts,  phrases,  figures,  precisely  to  one  or  another  of 
many  springs  of  contemporary  information  and  parlance, 
in  these  two  passages  combined  one  might  say  we  find  the 
definite  source  of  some:  Sol,  enthroned  "  amids  the  other"; 
"like  the  commandment  of  a  king";  "the  unity  and  mar- 
ried calm  of  states";  "each  thing  meets  in  mere  oppug- 
nancy";  "the  bounded  waters"  rising  "higher  than  the 
shores"  to  "make  a  sop  of  all  this  solid  globe";  the  dis- 
ruption of  natural  loves — "the  rude  son  should  strike 
his  father  dead";  "between  whose  endless  jar  justice  re- 
sides." 

F.  Batman  and  Rabelais. 

In  Batman's  Additions  to  Bartholeme  (1582)  the  poet 
might  have  found — if  finding  of  commonplaces  were  nec- 
essary— Sol  as  a  planet,  "the  fourth  in  place,  as  it  were  a 
king  in  the  middest  of  his  throne,"  and  "the  Sunne  is  the 
Eye  of  the  world."  See  New  Shakesp.  Soc.  Trans.,  1877- 
79,  436-443.  And  in  the  French  of  Rabelais'  Gargantua 
and  Pantagruel  or  one  of  the  Elizabethan  translations  of  it, 
he  might  have  read,  perhaps  had  read,  Panurge's  famous 
panegyric  of  debtors  and  borrowers — a  correlation  backed 


Appendix  239 

by  the  analogy  of  planetary  interborrowing  without  which 
"amongst  the  planets  will  be  no  regular  course,  all  will  be 
disorder."  See  Urquhart  and  Motteux,  Works  of  Rabelais, 
Bk.  Ill,  iii,  334-335.  But  neither  Batman  nor  Rabelais 
furnished  Shakespeare  with  his  materials  or  his  line  of 
thought  in  this  portion  of  the  discourse  of  Ulysses. 

G.  Sir  Thomas  Elyot's  The  Governour. 

In  Book  I,  Chapters  one  and  two,  Elyot  inveighs  against 
the  disorders  of  a  "  communaltie,"  insists  upon  monarchi- 
cal government,  and  elaborates  the  doctrine  of  rule  by 
magistrates  in  their  degrees  as  appointed  by  the  prince. 
He  exemplifies  his  contention  somewhat  in  the  fashion  of 
Ulysses:  If  the  commons  "ones  throwe  downe  theyr  gover- 
nour,  they  ordre  every  thynge  without  justice,  only  with 
vengeance  and  crueltie  .  .  .  Wherefore  undoubtedly  the 
best  and  most  sure  governaunce  is  by  one  kynge  or  prince. 
.  .  .  Who  can  denie  but  that  all  thynge  in  heven  and 
erthe  is  governed  by  one  god,  by  one  perpetuall  ordre,  by 
one  providence?  One  Sunne  ruleth  over  the  day,  and  one 
Moone  over  the  nyghte;  and  to  descende  downe  to  the 
erthe,  in  a  littel  beest,  whiche  of  all  other  is  moste  to  be 
marvayled  at,  I  meane  the  Bee,  is  lefte  to  man  by  nature, 
as  it  semeth,  a  perpetuall  figure  of  a  juste  governaunce  or 
rule."  From  "the  discrepance  of  degrees,"  he  says,  "pro- 
cedeth  ordre:  whiche  in  thinges  as  wel  naturall  as  super- 
naturall  hath  ever  had  such  a  preeminence,  that  therby 
the  incomparable  majestic  of  god,  as  it  were  by  a  bright 
leme  of  a  torche  or  candel,  is  declared  to  the  blynde  in- 
habitantes  of  this  worlde.  More  over  take  away  ordre  from 
all  thynges  what  shulde  than  remayne?  Certes  nothynge 
finally,  except  some  man  wolde  imagine  eftsones  chaos; 
whiche  of  some  is  expounde  a  confuse  mixture.  Also  where 


240  Appendix 

there  is  any  lacke  of  ordre  nedes  must  be  perpetuall  con- 
flicte."  When  any  agent  subject  to  Nature  destroys 
order  "he  hymselfe  of  necessite  muste  than  perisshe,  whereof 
ensuethe  universall  dissolution"  And,  speaking  of  order  in 
the  vegetable  and  animal  creation:  "without  ordre  may  be 
nothing  stable  or  permanent;  and  it  may  not  be  called 
ordre,  except  it  do  contayne  in  it  degrees,  high  and  base, 
accordynge  to  the  merite  or  estimation  of  the  thynge 
that  is  ordered."  See  Everyman  edition,  in  sequence  as 
quoted,  pages  8-9,  3,  4. 

The  resemblance  in  thought,  illustration,  and  occasion- 
ally in  phraseology,  in  the  passages  italicized  to  the  dis- 
course of  Ulysses  needs  no  comment.  It  does  not,  however, 
follow  that  Shakespeare  was  deliberately  versifying  these 
half-dozen  pages  of  Elyot.  That  he  may  have  read  the 
chapters,  steeped  his  mind  in  them,  is  not  impossible. 
We  note,  however,  that  the  figure  of  the  celestial  order  is 
but  touched  upon  by  Elyot,  and  the  "chaos"  but  slightly 
developed.  The  indebtedness  to  Elyot,  if  any,  would  begin 
and  end  with  the  political  application  of  the  analogy. 

H.  Hooker's  Indebtedness  to  Boethius  and  Arnobius. 

"The  ordinance  which  moveth  the  heaven  and  the 
stars,  etc.,"  is  Chaucer's  translation  of  Boethius,  De  Con- 
solatione,  Bk.  IV,  Metre  VI.  In  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity, 
Bk.  I,  ii,  6,  Hooker  quotes  Boethius,  Bk.  IV,  Prose  V,  50, 
Tamen  quoniam  bonus  mundum  rector  temperat,  recte 
fieri  cuncta  ne  dubites,  and  translates  "  Let  no  man  doubt 
but  that  everything  is  well  done,  because  the  world  is 
ruled  by  so  good  a  guide."  Chaucer's  translation  of  this 
runs — "  For  as  moche  as  god,  the  good  governour,  atem- 
preth  and  governeth  the  world,  ne  doute  thee  nat  that  alle 
thinges  ben  doon  a-right." 


Appendix  241 

The  reader  will  find  the  Latin  passage  from  Arnobius 
Adversus  Gentes  in  all  editions  of  Hooker's  Polity:  in  the 
Everyman  edition  at  the  bottom  of  page  157.  From  it 
Hooker  draws  his  phraseology:  "those  principal  and 
mother  elements  .  .  .  whereof  all  things  are  made  should 
lose  the  qualities  which  now  they  have";  "the  heavenly 
arch  erected  over  our  heads  should  loosen  and  dissolve 
itself";  "by  irregular  volubility";  "prince  of  the  lights 
of  heaven."  From  Arnobius  he  paraphrases  his  "moon 
should  wander  from  her  beaten  way,"  his  "seasons  blend 
themselves  by  disordered  and  confused  mixture,"  his 
"celestial  spheres  should  forget  their  wonted  motions," 
his  "winds  breathe  out  their  last  gasp,  the  clouds  yield 
no  rain,  the  earth  be  defeated  of  heavenly  influence,  the 
fruits  of  the  earth  pine  away." 

I.  Translations  and  Expositions  of  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle Accessible  in  1600. 

In  Plato's  Republic,  Book  IV,  431-2,  the  comparison 
of  diapason  is  used.  In  Book  VIII,  562,  574-5,  and  IX, 
574,  of  the  Republic  we  find  something  like  a  suggestion 
of  "strength  should  be  lord  of  imbecility,  and  the  rude  son 
should  strike  his  father  dead";  in  VIII,  561,  and  II,  359, 
of  the  three  lines  beginning  "Force  should  be  right"; 
in  VIII,  561  and  564  of  lines  119-126 — even  of  the  "uni- 
versal wolf"  and  of  the  following  passage  about  "neglec- 
tion  of  degree."  1  The  Republic  was  accessible  in  Latin 
for  eighty-two  years  before  1600,  and  in  1600  in  the  French 
version  of  Loys  Leroy.  Plato's  opinion  of  democracy 
had,  however,  for  a  long  time  previous  been  familiar  to 
Englishmen  through  the  fragments  of  Cicero's  De  Repub- 

1 J.  H.  Hanford,  A  Platonic  Passage  in  Troilus  and  Cressida; 
Univ.  North  Carolina,  Studies  in  Philology,  XIII,  2. 


242  Appendix 

lica  quoted  by  St.  Augustine  in  his  De  Civitate  Dei, 
and  to  a  slight  extent  through  Boethius.  Through  the 
Aristotelian  tradition  and  the  neo-Platonism  of  the  Renais- 
sance, the  Latin  and  French  translations  of  Aristotle's 
Politics,  and  J.  D.'s  English  translation  of  Leroy's  French 
in  1598,  the  dangers  of  democracy  had  become  a  political 
platitude.  The  expositions  of  Aristotle  and  Plato  which 
J.  D.  had  appended  to  his  translation  would  have  familiar- 
ized those  who  read  nothing  but  English  with  the  opinions 
in  general  of  both  philosophers.  The  psychology  developed 
in  Plato's  Republic  had  lived  through  his  Timseus  during 
the  thousand  years  in  which  the  Republic  seemed  to  sleep; 
and,  in  Aristotelian  guise,  it  had  dominated  the  schools 
during  the  middle  ages.  Of  the  Nicomachean  Ethics  of 
Aristotle  there  existed  numerous  translations  in  Shake- 
speare's day,  an  English  paraphrase  by  Wylkinson,  of 
1547,  and  a  French  translation  by  de  Plessis,  of  1553. 
For  reasons  given  in  the  text  I  do  not  believe  that  Shake- 
speare was  deriving  the  politics,  psychology  or  ethics  of 
Ulysses'  speech  directly  from  either  Plato  or  Aristotle. 

J.  The  Ethics  and  Psychology  of  Hooker  and 
Shakespeare. 

I.  Shakespeare's  dicta  concerning  the  nature  and  appre- 
hension of  right  and  wrong,  absolute  and  relative  values, 
and  the  whole  question  of  choice,  closely  resemble  at  times 
the  utterances  of  Montaigne,  but  the  substantial  philoso- 
phy, that  which  inspires  his  rule  of  conduct,  is  more  ex- 
plicitly and  logically  expounded  by  Hooker.  The  reflec- 
tions of  the  Friar  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  II,  iii,  17  (c.  1594-6) 
on  the  special  good  that  may  proceed  from  vileness,  and 
vice  versa;  Henry  V's  "There  is  some  soul  of  goodness  in 
things  evil,  would  men  observingly  distil  it  out,"  IV,  I,  4 


Appendix  243 

(1599) — both  written  before  Florio's  translation  of  Mon- 
taigne was  published;  Hamlet's  "There  is  nothing  either 
good  or  bad,  but  thinking  makes  it  so,"  II,  ii,  256  (1602-4)  5 
the  query  of  Troilus  (1602-9),  "What  is  aught  but  as 
'tis  valued?"  Hector's  reply  (II,  ii,  53-57): 

But  value  dwells  not  in  particular  will; 

It  holds  his  estimate  and  dignity 

As  well  wherein  'tis  precious  of  itself 

As  in  the  prizer:  'tis  mad  idolatry 

To  make  the  service  greater  than  the  god; 

and  Troilus's  retort  (61-67): 

I  take  to-day  a  wife,  and  my  election 

Is  led  on  in  the  conduct  of  my  will, 

My  will  enkindled  by  mine  eyes  and  ears, 

Two  traded  pilots  twixt  the  dangerous  shores 

Of  will  and  judgment:  how  may  I  avoid, 

Although  my  will  distaste  what  is  elected, 

The  wife  I  chose; — 

all  these  find  their  counterpart,  if  counterpart  must  be 
found  for  reflections  which  might  be  common  to  the 
thought  of  the  age,  in  the  four  or  five  sections  of  Hooker's 
Polity  (I,  vii-xi),  some  thirty  pages  in  all.  For  instance, 
"To  choose  is  to  will  one  thing  before  another.  And 
to  will  is  to  bend  our  souls  to  the  having  or  doing  of  that 
which  they  see  to  be  good.  Goodness  is  seen  with  the  eye 
of  the  understanding";  and  in  what  follows — "there  is  no 
particular  object  so  good  but  it  may  have  the  show  of  un- 
pleasant quality,"  wherefore  "the  will  may  shrink  and 
decline  it;  there  is  no  particular  evil  which  hath  not  some 


244  Appendix 

appearance  of  goodness  whereby  to  insinuate  itself.  For 
evil  as  evil  cannot  be  desired:  if  that  be  desired  which  is 
evil,  the  cause  is  the  goodness  which  is  or  seemeth  to  be 
joined  with  it.  Goodness  doth  not  move  by  being,  but  by 
being  apparent;  and  therefore  many  things  are  neglected 
which  are  most  precious,  only  because  the  value  of  them 
lieth  hid  .  .  .  All  particular  things  which  are  subject 
unto  action  the  Will  doth  so  far  forth  incline  unto,  as 
Reason  judgeth  them  the  better  for  us.  ...  If  Reason 
err  we  fall  into  evil.  .  .  .  The  greatest  part  of  men  are 
such  as  prefer  their  private  good  before  all  things,  even 
that  good  which  is  sensual  before  whatsoever  is  most 
divine.  .  .  .  Unless  the  last  good  of  all,  which  is  desired 
altogether  for  itself,  be  also  infinite,  we  do  evil  in  making 
it  our  end.  .  .  .  Whereas  we  now  love  the  thing  that  is 
good  especially  in  respect  of  benefit  unto  us;  we  shall  then 
love  the  thing  that  is  good,  only  or  principally  for  the 
goodness  of  beauty  in  itself."  * 

"The  web  of  our  life  is  of  a  mingled  yarn,"  says  one  in 
All's  Well  that  Ends  Well  (as  we  have  it,  probably  of  1602), 
"good  and  ill  together;  our  virtues  would  be  proud  if  our 
faults  whipped  them  not;  and  our  crimes  would  despair 
if  they  were  not  cherished  by  our  virtues."  "Of  such  per- 
fection capable  we  are  not  in  this  life,"  says  Hooker. 
"While  we  are  in  the  world,  subject  we  are  unto  sundry 
imperfections,  griefs  of  body,  defects  of  mind;  yea,  the 
best  things  we  do  are  painful,  and  the  exercise  of  them 
grievous;"  but  again — "We  are  not  to  marvel  at  the  choice 
of  evil  then  when  the  contrary  is  probably  known.  .  .  . 
For  there  was  never  sin  committed,  wherein  a  less  good 
was  not  preferred  before  a  greater,  and  that  wilfully."  2 

1  Polity,  169-170,  172,  174,  192,  202,  205. 

2  Polity,  203,  173. 


Appendix  245 

2.  The  Law  of  Nature  and  of  Political  Society.    "Na- 
ture craves,"  says  Hector  (Troilus  and  Cressida,  II,  ii, 
173-182), 

Nature  craves 

All  dues  be  render'd  to  their  owners:  now, 
What  nearer  debt  in  all  humanity 
Than  wife  is  to  the  husband?    If  this  law 
Of  nature  be  corrupted  through  affection, 
And  that  great  minds,  of  partial  indulgence 
To  their  benumbed  wills,  resist  the  same, 
There  is  a  law  in  each  well-order'd  nation 
To  curb  those  raging  appetites  that  are 
Most  disobedient  and  refractory. 

The  thought  is  not  rare.  It  occurs  also  in  Hooker  (I,  x, 
i) — "We  see  then  how  nature  itself  teacheth  laws  and 
statutes  to  live  by.  .  .  .  Laws  politic,  ordained  for  ex- 
ternal order  and  regiment  among  men,  are  never  framed 
as  they  should  be,  unless  presuming  the  will  of  man  to  be 
inwardly  obstinate,  rebellious,  and  averse  from  all  obedi- 
ence unto  the  sacred  laws  of  his  nature,  .  .  .  they  do  ac- 
cordingly provide  notwithstanding  so  to  frame  his  outward 
actions,  that  they  be  no  hinderance  unto  the  common 
good  for  which  societies  are  instituted;  unless  they  do 
this,  they  are  not  perfect.  .  .  .  Laws  do  not  only  teach 
what  is  good,  but  they  enjoin  it,  they  have  in  them  a  cer- 
tain constraining  force." 

3.  The  principle  that  nought  is  ours  save  as  we  use  it 
comes   to  the  fore  in  Ulysses'   colloquy   with  Achilles 
(Troilus  and  Cressida,  III,  iii,  95  et  seq.); 

1  Polity,  187-8,  192. 


246  Appendix 

A  strange  fellow  here 

Writes  me  that  "Man — how  dearly  ever  parted, 
How  much  in  having,  or  without  or  in — 
Cannot  make  boast  to  have  that  which  he  hath, 
Nor  feels  not  what  he  owes,  but  by  reflection; 
As  when  his  virtues  shining  upon  others 
Heat  them,  and  they  retort  that  heat  again 
To  the  first  giver." 

Achilles  finds  no  strangeness  here  at  all  and  cites  the  anal- 
ogy of  the  soul  and  the  eye  that  cannot  "behold  itself, 
not  going  from  itself" — a  commonplace  from  the  pseudo- 
Platonic  First  Alcibiades  (Latin  transl.  1560),  by  way, 
perhaps,  of  Cicero's  Tusculans  (English  transl.  1561) 
or  Davies  Nosce  Teipsum  (1599),  or  of  general  conver- 
sation. Ulysses,  returning  to  his  "  strange  fellow,"  replies, 

I  do  not  strain  at  the  position, — 

It  is  familiar, — but  at  the  author's  drift; 

Who,  in  his  circumstance,  expressly  proves 

That  no  man  is  the  lord  of  anything, 

(Though  in  and  of  him  there  be  much  consisting,) 

Till  he  communicate  his  parts  to  others. 

The  thought  is  expressed  by  other  Shakespearian  char- 
acters. Vincentio  has  even  more  poetically  phrased  it  in 
Measure  for  Measure  of  1603-4  (I>  i>  3°  et  se(l^  '•  "Thyself 
and  thy  belongings  are  not  thine  own;  .  .  .  Heaven  doth 
with  us  as  we  with  torches  do;  .  .  .  Spirits  are  not  finely 
touched  but  to  fine  issues;  .  .  .  Nature  .  .  .  determines 
.  .  .  both  thanks  and  use";  and  his  Laertes  (Hamlet, 
IV,  v,  160-162)  is  yet  to  rephrase  it.  That  Hooker,  also, 
insists  upon  the  principle  is  not  strange;  nor,  if  Shakespeare 


Appendix  247 

had  to  borrow  this  thought  from  the  divine,  would  he  be 
likely  to  write  him  down  "a  strange  fellow."  "To  supply 
those  defects  and  imperfections,"  writes  Hooker  (Eccl. 
Pol.  I,  x,  i,  and  12),  "which  are  in  us  living  single  and 
solely  by  ourselves,  we  are  naturally  induced  to  seek  com- 
munion and  fellowship  with  others.  .  .  .  Between  men 
and  beasts  there  is  no  possibility  of  sociable  communion, 
because  the  well-spring  of  that  communion  is  a  natural 
delight  which  man  hath  to  transfuse  from  himself  into 
others,  and  to  receive  from  others  into  himself  especially 
those  things  wherein  the  excellency  of  his  kind  doth  most 
consist.  .  .  .  Civil  society  doth  more  content  the  nature 
of  man  than  any  private  kind  of  solitary  living,  because 
in  society  this  good  of  mutual  participation  is  so  much 
larger  than  otherwise."  And,  in  XI,  I,  "All  things  (God 
only  excepted),  besides  the  nature  which  they  have  in 
themselves,  receive  externally  some  perfection  from  other 
things,  as  hath  been  shewed.  Insomuch  as  there  is  in  the 
whole  world  no  one  thing  great  or  small,  but  either  in 
respect  of  knowledge  or  of  use  it  may  add  unto  our  per- 
fection somewhat."1 

I  cite  these  passages  merely  as  further  example  of  simi- 
larity in  subject  and  point  of  view.  Not  only  is  the  "posi- 
tion familiar"  as  Ulysses  says,  and  frequently  taken  in 
the  plays  of  Shakespeare  and  in  his  sonnets,  it  abounds 
also  in  plays,  essays  and  sonnets  of  others,  Italian,  French, 
English.  If  Shakespeare  derived  the  "position"  from  any 
definite  source,  it  might  have  been  the  pseudo-Platonic, 
as  mentioned  above,  or  the  Nosce  Teipsum,  or  the  discus- 
sion of  Friendship  in  the  Ethics  of  Aristotle,  or,  as  J.  M. 
Robertson  has  shown,2  one  of  several  passages,  in  Cicero, 

Polity,  188,  198,  201. 

8  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  pp.  101  ft  seq. 


248  Appendix 

Seneca,  Erasmus,  Montaigne,  or  Marston.  Or  it  may  have 
been  from  Hooker.  For  the  strange  fellow,  however,  and 
his  "drift" — the  circumstantial  detail,  which  Ulysses 
counts  less  familiar — I  venture  to  suggest,  though  I  sup- 
pose others  have  done  the  same,  Rabelais,  who  was  well 
known  to  the  Elizabethans,  and  his  Panurge's  panegyric 
upon  Borrowing.  See  the  Works  of  Rabelais,  III,  iii,  v, 
pages  333-343,  in  Motteux's  translation.  Rabelais  was  a 
stranger  fellow  than  Socrates,  Aristotle,  Montaigne  or 
Hooker.  And  the  drift  of  Panurge's  "circumstance"  is 
stranger  still. 

4.  Discourse  of  Reason;  Will  and  Appetite.  We  cannot 
be  sure  that  Shakespeare  used  the  expression  "discourse 
of  reason"  before  1604.  It  occurs  in  Troilus  and  Cressida, 
published  first  in  1609  with  additions,  and  it  may  have 
been  in  the  original  manuscript  of  about  1601-2.  It  occurs 
in  the  1604  quarto  of  Hamlet  (written  about  1601-2), 
but  not  in  the  incomplete  version  published  in  1603.  It 
appears  as  "discourse  of  thought"  in  Othello,  written  and 
acted  about  1604,  but  not  published  till  1622.  The  expres- 
sion has  been  discovered  in  a  few  English  books  published 
before  1580;  but  there  is  no  proof  that  any  of  them  were 
read  by  Shakespeare.  Bacon  uses  the  phrase  in  1599 
(putative  pamphlet  on  Squire's  conspiracy),  and  in  The 
Advancement  of  Learning,  I6O5.1  J.  M.  Roberston  finds 
the  expression  four  times  in  Montaigne's  Essays  and  in 
Florio's  translation  of  them,  published  in  1603.  He  con- 
cedes that  the  words  "seem  to  be  scholastic  in  origin" 
but  he  finds  it  difficult  to  "doubt  that  ...  it  came  to 
Shakespeare  through  Florio's  Montaigne."  The  phrase 
is  scholastic,  but  it  was  probably  in  common  use  in  Eliza- 

1J.  M.  Robertson,  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  p.  47.  See 
also,  Furness,  Variorum,  Hamlet,  I,  p.  45;  and  N.  E.  D. 


Appendix  249 

bethan  conversation.  I  find  "discourse,"  "discourse  of 
reason,"  "discourse  of  natural  reason,"  "natural  discourse 
of  reason,"  "natural  reason,"  "natural  discourse"  scat- 
tered up  and  down  the  pages  of  Hooker's  Polity,  1594. 
In  the  first  book  Hooker  uses  the  phrase  in  several  of  its 
variations.  He  discusses  the  faculty  of  reason,  and  re- 
gards "discourse"  as  the  art  or  process  of  ratiocination. 
"The  Law  of  Reason  or  Human  Nature,"  he  says  (I,  x,  8) 
"is  that  which  men  by  discourse  of  natural  reason  have 
rightly  found  out  themselves  to  be  all  for  ever  bound  unto 
in  their  actions."  In  the  third  book,  speaking  of  the  dis- 
paragement of  reason  by  the  Puritans,  he  says  (viii,  n) 
"  Let  men  be  taught  this  [the  belief  in  God's  existence,  etc.] 
either  by  revelation  from  heaven,  or  by  instruction  upon 
earth.  ...  If  the  knowledge  thereof  were  possible 
without  discourse  of  natural  reason,  why  should  none  be 
found  capable  thereof  but  only  men?"  And  on  the  same 
page,  "What  science  can  be  attained  unto  without  the 
help  of  natural  discourse  and  reason?"  A  few  paragraphs 
earlier  (VIII,  7)  Hooker  contrasts  genuine  philosophy  as 
"true  and  sound  knowledge  attained  by  natural  discourse 
of  reason"  with  "that  philosophy  which  to  bolster  heresy 
or  error  casteth  a  fraudulent  show  of  reason  upon  things 
which  are  indeed  unreasonable."  And,  in  the  last  para- 
graph of  the  same  section,  "human  laws"  are  defined  to 
be  "ordinances,  which  such  as  have  lawful  authority 
given  them  for  that  purpose  do  probably  draw  from  the 
law  of  nature  and  God,  by  discourse  of  reason  aided  with 
the  influence  of  divine  grace."  l 

To  attribute  Shakespeare's  use  of  the  expression  to  the 
exclusive  authority  of  Hooker  would  be  as  unwarrantable 
as  to  attribute  it  to  a  reading  of  Bacon's  pamphlet  on 
1  Polity,  182,  319,  312,  324. 


250  Appendix 

Squire's  conspiracy,  or  of  his  Advancement  of  Learning1 
in  manuscript,  say,  of  1603,  or  of  Florio's  Montaigne 
whether  in  the  print  of  1603  or  in  manuscript  before  pub- 
lication, or  of  any  other  English  books,  in  which  we  know 
it  was  used  before  1601.  It  is  worth  noticing,  however, 
that,  outside  of  the  Polity,  in  none  of  these  books,  even 
by  Bacon  or  Montaigne,  is  the  phrase  used  other  than 
calamo  currente  save  once,  when  Montaigne2  in  the  Essay 
on  Spurina  vouchsafes,  "It  is  much,  by  discourse  of  reason, 
to  bridle  our  appetites."  As  to  the  word  "discourse" 
in  the  sense  of  drawing  inferences,  it  appears  frequently 
in  Montaigne,  but  that  fact  combined  with  Montaigne's 
four  incidental  mentions  of  "discourse  of  reason"  does  not 
justify  Mr.  Robertson  in  concluding  that  Shakespeare 
derives  word  or  phrase  from  Montaigne.  Nor  does  it 
follow  that  Hamlet's  soliloquy  "What  is  a  man,  etc.," 
is  an  "echo"  of  Montaigne,  Bk.  II,  8 — "Since  it  hath 
pleased  God  to  endow  us  with  some  capacity  of  discourse, 
that  as  beasts  we  should  not  servilely  be  subjected  to 
common  laws,  but  rather  with  judgment  and  voluntary 
liberty  apply  ourselves  unto  them;  .  .  .  only  reason  ought 
to  have  the  conduct  of  our  inclinations";  and  of  Bk.  II, 
1 8,  "Nature  hath  endowed  us  with  a  large  faculty  to  en- 
tertain ourselves  apart,  etc."  In  Hooker,  "discourse" 
or  discourse  of  reason" — the  argumentative  process  by 
which  we  determine  the  value  of  "things  unsensible" — 
is  clearly  discriminated,  on  the  one  hand,  from  judgment 
common  to  us  with  the  beasts,  concerning  matters  of 
appetite,  and  on  the  other,  from  processes  of  supernatural 
revelation.  By  Hooker  it  is  much  more  largely  and  ex- 
plicitly discussed  than  by  Montaigne  or  any  other  con- 

1  Bk.  I,  p.  28, 1.  13,  W.  A.  Wright's  edition,  1885. 

2  Bk.  II,  XXXIII,  p.  296,  Temp.  Class  Ed. 


Appendix  251 

temporary  writer  to  whom  Shakespeare  had  access.  In 
other  words,  if  without  going  back  to  Plato,  Aristotle,  and 
works  of  mediaeval  philosophy  we  have  to  fix  upon  a 
printed  source  for  the  psychology  and  ethics  underlying 
Shakespeare's  poetry  of  the  "discourse  of  reason,"  the 
argument  for  Hooker's  Polity  is  more  easy  to  maintain 
than  for  any  other  so  far  adduced. 

In  order  that  we  may  examine  the  underlying  psychology 
and  ethics  let  us  quote  from  the  poet  the  passages  under 
consideration.  In  Troilus  and  Cressida  (II,  ii,  115-116), 
Hector  remonstrates  with  the  impetuous  Troilus: 

Is  your  blood 

So  madly  hot  that  no  discourse  of  reason, 
Nor  fear  of  bad  success  in  a  bad  cause, 
Can  qualify  the  same. 

In  Othello  (IV,  ii,  152-153)  Desdemona  protests  that  her 
will  never  did  trespass  against  Othello's  love,  "Either  in 
discourse  of  thought  or  actual  deed."  In  Hamlet  of  the 
1604  quarto  the  hero  (I,  ii,  143-151)  soliloquizes: 

Must  I  remember.    Why,  she  would  hang  on  him 
As  if  increase  of  appetite  had  grown 
By  what  it  fed  on1  .  .  .    Why  she,  even  she — 
Oh  God!  a  beast  that  wants  discourse  of  reason 
Would  have  mourned  longer! —  2 

and  again  (IV,  iv,  33-39) :  3 

1 Q.  1603  has:  "looked  on"  for  "fed  on." 

2  Q.  1603  has  "Oh,  God  a  beast  Devoid  of  reason  would  not 
have  made  such  speed." 

3  Not  in  Q.  1603. 


252  Appendix 

What  is  a  man, 

If  his  chief  good  and  market  of  his  time 
Be  but  to  sleep  and  feed?  a  beast,  no  more. 
Sure  He  that  made  us  with  such  large  discourse, 
Looking  before  and  after,  gave  us  not 
That  capability  and  godlike  reason 
To  fust  in  us  unused.    Now  whether  it  be 
Bestial  oblivion,  or  some  craven  scruple 
Of  thinking  too  precisely  on  the  event, — 
A  thought  which  quarter'd  hath  but  one  part  wisdom 
And  ever  three  parts  coward, — I  do  not  know 
Why  yet  I  live  to  say  "This  thing's  to  do;" 
Sith  I  have  cause  and  will  and  strength  and  means 
To  do't. 

Let  us  compare  with  these  extracts  the  thought  of 
Hooker,  noting  especially  the  words  which  I  have  italicized, 
and  remembering  that  we  are  already  familiar  with  his 
usage  of  "discourse  of  reason."  In  Bk.  I  of  the  Polity, 
we  read  of  "that  inferior  natural  desire  which  we  call 
Appetite: 

"The  object  of  Appetite  is  whatsoever  sensible  good  may  be 
wished  for;  the  object  of  Will  is  that  good  which  Reason  doth 
lead  us  to  seek.  Affections  as  joy,  and  grief,  and  fear,  and 
anger,  with  such  like,  being  as  it  were  the  sundry  fashions 
and  forms  of  Appetite,  can  neither  rise  at  the  conceit  of  a 
thing  indifferent,  nor  yet  choose  but  rise  at  the  sight  of  cer- 
tain things.  Wherefore  it  is  not  altogether  in  our  power, 
whether  we  will  be  stirred  with  affections  or  no;  whereas 
actions  which  issue  from  the  disposition  of  the  Will  are  in  the 
power  thereof  to  be  performed  or  stayed,  (170)  .  .  .  Sensible 
goodness  is  most  apparent,  near  and  present,  which  causeth 
the  Appetite  to  be  therewith  strongly  provoked  (172)  .  .  . 


Appendix  253 

The  rule  of  natural  agents  which  work  after  a  sort  of  their 
own  accord,  as  the  beasts  do,  is  the  judgment  of  common 
sense  or  fancy  concerning  the  sensible  goodness  of  those  ob- 
jects wherewith  they  are  moved  (177)  ...  It  may  be 
therefore  a  question  whether  those  operations  of  men  are 
to  be  counted  voluntary,  wherein  that  good  which  is  sensible 
provoketh  Appetite  and  Appetite  causeth  action,  Reason 
being  never  called  to  counsel;  as  when  we  eat  or  drink,  and 
betake  ourselves  unto  rest,  and  such  like  (170)  .  .  .  What 
things  are  food  and  what  are  not  we  judge  naturally  by  sense; 
neither  need  we  any  other  law  to  be  our  director  in  that 
behalf  than  the  selfsame  which  is  common  unto  us  with 
beasts  (229)  .  .  .  The  soul  of  man  being  capable  of  a  more 
divine  perfection  hath  ...  a  further  ability,  whereof  in 
them  [the  beasts]  there  is  no  show  at  all,  the  ability  of 
reaching  higher  than  unto  sensible  things  (167)  .  .  .  By 
reason  man  attaineth  unto  the  knowledge  of  things  that 
are  and  are  not  sensible.  .  .  .  Man  in  perfection  of  nature 
being  made  according  to  the  likeness  of  his  Maker  resembleth 
him  also  in  the  manner  of  working  (169)  ....  Yea,  those 
men  which  have  no  written  law  of  God  to  show  what  is 
good  or  evil,  carry  written  in  their  hearts  the  universal  law 
of  mankind,  the  Law  of  Reason,  whereby  they  judge  as  by  a 
rule  which  God  hath  given  unto  all  men  for  that  purpose 
(228)  .  .  .  And  the  Law  of  Reason  or  human  nature  is 
that  which  men  by  discourse  of  natural  Reason  have  rightly 
found  out  themselves  to  be  all  for  ever  bound  unto  in  their 
actions  (182)  .  .  .  Man  doth  seek  a  triple  perfection: 
first,  a  sensual;  .  .  .  then  an  intellectual  consisting  in 
those  things  which  none  underneath  man  is  either  capable  of 
or  acquainted  with;  lastly,  a  spiritual  and  divine,  consisting 
in  those  things  whereunto  we  tend  by  supernatural  means 
here,  but  cannot  here  attain  unto  them"  (205). 


254  Appendix 

By  virtue  of  reason  we  look  "before  and  after";  for  as 
Hooker  says:  "Goodness  is  seen  with  the  eye  of  the  under- 
standing. And  the  light  of  that  eye,  is  reason  (170)  .  .  . 
And  of  discerning  goodness  there  are  but  then  two  ways; 
the  one  the  knowledge  of  the  causes  whereby  it  is  made 
such;  the  other  the  observation  of  those  signs  and  tokens" 
from  which  we  argue  that  where  they  are,  goodness  will 
be  found,  "  though  we  know  not  the  cause  by  force  whereof 
it  is  there"  (175).  No  less  fundamental  to  his  discussion 
is  the  premise  that  reason  must  not,  as  Hamlet  says, 
"fust  in  us  unused."  "Through  neglect  thereof  [of 
Reason],"  Hooker  reminds  us,  "abused  we  are  with  the  show 
of  that  which  is  not:  sometimes  the  subtlety  of  Satan  in- 
veighing us  as  it  did  Eve;  sometimes  the  hastiness  of  our 
Wills  preventing  the  more  considerate  advice  of  sound 
Reason.  .  .  .  The  search  of  knowledge  is  a  thing  painful; 
and  the  painfulness  of  knowledge  is  that  which  maketh  the 
Will  so  hardly  inclinable  thereunto"  (173);  and  then,  "the 
soul  preferreth  rest  in  ignorance  before  wearisome  labor  to 
know"  (174).  Moreover,  "there  is  no  particular  object 
so  good,  but  it  may  have  the  show  of  some  difficulty  or  un- 
pleasant quality  annexed  to  it,  in  respect  whereof  the  Will  may 
shrink  and  decline  it"  (172). 

There  may  be  nothing  in  the  poetic  phrasing  or  the 
dramatic  passion  of  the  "discourse  of  reason"  passages  in 
Troilus  and  Cressida  and  Hamlet,  or  in  the  passage  of 
similar  psychological  and  ethical  import  concerning 
"power  into  will,  will  into  appetite"  from  the  former  play 
to  establish  beyond  shadow  of  doubt  that  Shakespeare 
derived  the  inspiration  from  Hooker  alone;  but  the  verbal 
similarities  are  striking,  and  the  philosophical  trend  of 
these  and  other  passages  is  in  every  particular  paralleled 
by  that  of  the  judicious  divine.  And  with  but  two  or 


Appendix  255 

three  exceptions  the  parallels  fall  within  the  compass  of 
one  very  small  book. 

5.  It  is  an  established  fact  that  Shakespeare  had  read 
Montaigne,  and  probably  in  Florio's  translation.  Every- 
body knows  that  he  took  Gonzalo's  description  of  the  com- 
monwealth where  there  is  "no  occupation;  all  men  idle, 
all"  from  the  original  Montaigne  or  the  translation,  and 
that  more  than  one  other  passage  comes  from  one  or  the 
other — probably  the  translation.  But  the  induction  from 
resemblances  to  the  authentic  inspiration  of  a  specific 
writer  may  be  carried  to  perilous  conclusions.  For  in  any 
generation  many  thinkers  will  express  themselves  in  similar 
fashion.  Mr.  Robertson1  finds  "a  noteworthy  resem- 
blance" between  "a  paragraph  in  the  Apology  of  Raimond 
Selonde2  in  which  Montaigne  sets  over  against  each  other 
the  splendour  of  the  universe  and  the  littleness  of  man," 
and  Hamlet's  address  to  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern 
(II,  ii,  319-321),  beginning  "This  most  excellent  canopy" 
and  concluding:  "What  a  piece  of  work  is  man!  how 
noble  in  reason!  how  infinite  in  faculties!  in  form  and  mov- 
ing how  express  and  admirable!  in  action  how  like  an 
angel!  in  apprehension  how  like  a  god!  the  beauty  of  the 
world!  the  paragon  of  animals!  And  yet,  to  me  what  is 
this  quintessence  of  dust?" 

Says  Mr.  Robertson,  "Here  the  thought  diverges,  Shake- 
speare making  it  his  own  as  he  always  does,  and  altering 
its  aim;  but  the  language  is  curiously  similar."  I  find  as 
fruitful  similarity  between  Hamlet's  view  of  man's  quality 
and  place  in  the  universe  and  the  view  offered  by  Hooker. 

1  Montaigne  and  Shakespeare,  52-55. 

*"Let  us  see  what  holdfast"  to  "equal  himself  to  God." 
Florio's  Montaigne's  Essays,  Bk.  II,  12,  pp.  203-208  (Temp.  Cl. 
ed.) 


256       .  Appendix 

Shakespeare's  supremely  poetic  apostrophe  required  of 
course  no  model.  But  Hooker,  having  discussed  the  eter- 
nal law  concerning  "things  natural  which  are  not  in  the 
number  of  voluntary  agents" — the  celestial  spheres,  our 
earth  among  them,  says  (Book  I,  iv) — "Now  that  we  may 
lift  up  our  eyes  (as  it  were)  from  the  footstool  to  the  throne 
of  God,  and  leaving  these  natural,  consider  a  little  the 
state  of  heavenly  and  divine  creatures;  touching  Angels, 
which  are  spirits  unmaterial  and  intellectual,  the  glorious 
inhabitants  of  those  sacred  palaces.  .  .  .  God  which 
moveth  mere  natural  agents  as  an  efficient  only,  doth 
otherwise  move  intellectual  creatures,  and  especially  his 
holy  angels  (161).  Desire  to  resemble  him  in  goodness 
maketh  them  unweariable  ...  to  do  all  manner  of  good 
unto  all  the  creatures  of  God,  but  especially  unto  the 
children  of  men:  in  the  countenance  of  whose  nature 
looking  downward,  they  behold  themselves  beneath  them- 
selves; even  as  upward  in  God  .  .  .  they  see  that  character 
which  is  nowhere  but  in  themselves  and  us  resembled.  .  .  . 
Angelical  actions  may  be  reduced  unto  these  three  general 
kinds:  first,  most  delectable  love  arising  from  the  visible 
apprehension  of  the  purity,  glory,  and  beauty  of  God,  in- 
visible saving  only  unto  spirits  that  are  pure;  secondly, 
adoration  .  .  .  thirdly,  imitation  (162).  .  .  .  Thus  much 
therefore  may  suffice  for  angels,  the  next  unto  whom  in 
degree  are  men  (164).  .  .  .  By  proceeding  in  the  knowl- 
edge of  truth,  and  by  growing  in  the  exercise  of  virtue, 
man  amongst  the  creatures  of  this  inferior  world  aspireth 
to  the  greatest  conformity  with  God  (165).  .  .  .  With 
Plato  what  one  thing  more  usual  than  to  excite  men  unto 
love  of  wisdom  by  showing  how  much  wise  men  are  thereby 
exalted  above  men;  how  knowledge  doth  raise  them  up  into 
heaven;  how  it  maketh  them  though  not  gods,  yet  as  gods, 


Appendix  257 

high,  admirable,  and  divine?.  .  .  From  utter  vacuity 
they  grow  till  they  come  at  length  to  be  even  as  the  angels 
are"  (166). 

Hooker,  as  quoted  earlier,  next  shows  that  "the  soul  of 
man  being  capable  of  a  more  divine  perfection  hath  (be- 
sides the  faculties  of  growing  unto  sensible  knowledge 
which  is  common  unto  us  with  beasts)  the  ability  of  reach- 
ing higher  than  unto  sensible  things"  (167),  viz.,  reason;  and 
that  "  man  in  perfection  of  nature  being  made  according  to 
the  likeness  of  his  Maker  resembleth  him  also  in  the  manner 
of  working.  .  .  .  And  that  which  is  good  in  the  actions 
of  men  [as  above  in  "angelical  actions"],  doth  not  only 
delight  as  profitable,  but  as  amiable  also.  In  which  con- 
sideration the  Grecians  most  divinely  have  given  to  the 
active  perfection  of  men  a  name  expressing  both  beauty 
and  goodness.  (175).  .  .  .  And  is  it  possible  that  Man 
being  not  only  the  noblest  creature  in  the  world,  but  even  a 
very  world  in  himself,  his  transgressing  the  Law  of  his 
Nature  should  draw  no  manner  of  harm  after  it?  (185). 
.  .  .  What  he  coveteth  as  good  in  itself,  toward  that  his 
desire  is  ever  infinite  (202).  .  .  .  No  good  is  infinite  but 
only  God;  therefore  He  our  felicity  and  bliss  (203).  .  .  . 
Under  Man,  no  creature  in  the  world  is  capable  of  felicity 
and  bliss"  (204). 

There  are  resemblances  between  Hamlet's  "To  be  or  not 
to  be"  soliloquy  and  passages  in  Montaigne's  twelfth 
essay  of  the  Third  Book:1  notably  between  "take  arms 
against  a  sea  of  troubles"  and  Montaigne's  "Loe  here 
another  huddle  or  tide  of  mischiefe,  that  on  the  neck  of 
the  former  came  rushing  upon  mee";  between  Hamlet 

1  Printed  in  parallel  columns  by  Miss  E.  R.  Hooker,  Relation 
of  Shakespeare  to  Montaigne  (Publ.  Mod.  Lang.  Ass'n  Amer , 
N.  S.,  X,  3,  354-355). 


258  Appendix 

on  Death — "  'Tis  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished" 
and  Florio's  translation  of  aneantissement,  etc. — "  If  it  be  a 
consummation  of  one's  being,  jt  is  also  an  amendment 
and  entrance  into  a  long  and  quiet  night";  and  of  the 
metaphorical  sequence  in  both:  to  die;  to  sleep;  to  dream 
or  not.  For  these  portions  of  the  soliloquy  there  are  no 
analogies  in  Hooker;  but  if  the  reader  think  it  worth  while 
to  unearth  resemblances  between  Shakespeare's  thought 
and  diction  and  the  thought  and  diction  of  some  writer  of 
contemporary  note,  let  me  refer  him  again  to  the  half- 
dozen  lines  of  this  soliloquy  beginning  "The  oppressor's 
wrong,  the  proud  man's  contumely"  and  the  clause  in 
Hooker's  Polity  (196)  about  the  punishment  of  contumely 
and  wrong  offered  unto  any  of  the  common  sort"  (already 
quoted,  p.  188,  ante).  Perhaps,  also,  in  the  conclusion  of 
the  soliloquy,  where  the  will  is  described  as  puzzled  by 
uncertainty  of  thought,  reason  or  consciousness — 

Thus  conscience  doth  make  cowards  of  us  all; 
And  thus  the  native  hue  of  resolution 
Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought, 
And  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment 
With  this  regard  their  currents  turn  awry, 
And  lose  the  name  of  action — 

he  may  find  some  reflex  of,  or  similarity  to,  Hooker's  ex- 
position in  the  Polity  (I,  vii,  6-viii,  2,  pages  172-175): 
"There  is  no  particular  object  so  good,  but  it  may  have  the 
show  of  some  difficulty  or  unpleasant  quality  annexed 
to  it,  in  respect  whereof  the  Will  may  shrink  and  decline 
it.  ...  Whereas  therefore  amongst  so  many  things  as 
are  to  be  done,  there  are  so  few,  the  goodness  whereof 
Reason  in  such  sort  doth  or  easily  can  discover,  we  are  not 
to  marvel  at  the  choice  of  evil  even  then  when  the  contrary 


Appendix  259 

is  probably  known.  .  .  .  The  painfulness  of  knowledge 
is  that  which  maketh  the  will  so  hardly  inclinable  there- 
unto. ...  By  reason  of  that  original  weakness  in  the  in- 
struments, without  which  the  understanding  part  is  not 
able  in  this  world  by  discourse  to  work,  the  very  conceit 
of  painfulness  is  as  a  bridle  to  stay  us.  ...  If  Reason  err, 
we  fall  into  evil,  and  are  so  far  forth  deprived  of  the  general 
perfection  we  seek.  ...  As  the  straight  way  is  most 
acceptable  to  him  that  travelleth,  because  by  it  he  cometh 
soonest  to  his  journey's  end;  so  in  action  that  which  doth 
lie  the  evenest  between  us  and  the  end  we  desire  must 
needs  be  the  fittest  for  our  use.  ...  Of  discerning  good- 
ness, .  .  .  the  knowledge  of  the  causes  whereby  it  is 
made  such  ...  is  the  more  sure  and  infallible  way,  but 
so  hard  that  all  shun  it,  and  had  rather  walk  as  men  do  in 
the  dark  by  haphazard,  than  tread  so  long  and  intricate 
mazes  for  knowledge'  sake."  There  may  be  in  Hamlet's 
"native  hue  of  resolution  .  .  .  sicklied  o'er  by  the  pale 
cast  of  thought"  no  adaptation  of  Hooker's  "very  conceit 
of  the  painfulness"  of  knowledge,  which  is  "as  a  bridle 
to  stay"  the  will  from  action, — but  merely  a  similarity  in 
the  balancing  of  probabilities  about  a  common  problem. 
In  all  that  I  have  said  about  conjectural  sources  for  ex- 
pressions that  were  or  may  have  been  proverbial,  and  for 
trends  of  thought  that  might  have  occurred  to  any  poet 
conversant  with  contemporary  science  and  speculation, 
my  purpose  has  been  not  to  assert  indebtedness,  implicit 
or  verbal,  but  to  call  attention  to  coincidences.  The  cumu- 
lative evidence  of  similarities  may  persuade  some  that 
Shakespeare  had  read  the  Ecclesiastical  Polity.  Whether 
he  had  read  it  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  about  many  things 
he  thought  much  as  Hooker  did,  and  about  many  wrote 
much  in  the  same  way. 


INDEX 


ABBOTT,  Nathan,  197,  202. 

Accounts  of  the  Revels  at  Court,  43. 

'Achilles',  245,  246. 

Adams,  John  and  Samuel,  in,  200. 

Advancement  of  Learning,  250. 

'Agamemnon',  150,  164,  183. 

Alfred,  King,  194. 

Algeere,  58. 

All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  133,  134, 

146,  1 86,  244. 
America,  6,  16,  29,  34,  85,  87,  189, 

198,  200,  201,  202,  207,  213,  214, 

215,  217,  222. 

American  Antiquarian  Society,  Pro- 
ceedings of,  225. 
American  Revolution,  95,  112,  113, 

192,  197-201,  203-204,  206-215, 

222,  223,  224. 
'Antonio',  in  M.   V.,  8;   in   The 

Tempest,  62,  68,  69. 
'Antony',  156. 
Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  183. 
Archer,  Gabriel,  225. 
Argall,  Sir  Samuel,  5,  6. 
'Ariel',  56-59. 
Aristotle,  102,  109,  171,  180,  181, 

183,  241,  242,  247,  248,  251. 
Arnobius,    Adversus    gentes,    172, 

174,  240,  241. 
'Arragon,  Prince  of,  134. 
Aubrey's  Brief  Lives,  13,  22,  25. 
Augustine,  St.,  145,  183,  242. 


BACON,  Sir  Francis,  17,  86,  158; 
and  the  Liberal  Movement,  232- 
234,  248,  249,  250. 

Bacon,  Nathaniel,  192. 

Bagehot,  Walter,  133. 

Bargrave,  Captain,  92. 

Barre,  Colonel,  198. 

Barrowists,  84,  186. 

Batman's  Additions  to  Bartho- 
leme,  238. 

Bayne,  Ronald,  15. 

Beaumarchais,  215. 

Beaumont,  Francis,  17,  22,  25, 
79,  80. 

Belgium,  216,  219. 

Bellingham,  Governor,  2OI. 

Berkeley,  Sir  William,  17. 

Bermudas,  the,  in  relation  to  The 
Tempest,  19,  22,  42,  44,  48,  50, 
S3,  54,  57,  59,  61,  63,  67,  72,  78, 
226-228,  230. 

Bernhardi,  F.  von,  159. 

Bill  of  Rights,  the,  ill,  208,  212. 

Bismarck,  Prince,  221. 

Blackfriars  Theatre,  14,  21,  22. 

Blackstone,  the  Commentaries,  208. 

Blake,  Admiral,  196. 

Boethius,  De  Consolatione  Philo- 
sophiae,  166,  168,  171,  172,  174, 
176,  178,  179,  234,  237,  240,  242. 

Bracton,  Laws  and  Customs  of  Eng- 
land, 195. 


261 


262 


Index 


Bradford,  William,  65,  88, 191,  200. 
Brewster,  William,  65,  86,  87,  89, 

93,  192- 
Brooke,  Christopher,   17,   18,  20, 

22,  24,  28,  29,  81,  85,  90,  91,  93, 

113,  133,  161,  191. 
Brooke,  Lord,  see  Greville. 
Brown,  Alexander,  English  Politics 

in  Early  Virginia  History,  3,  4, 

7,    53,    *99»   F*TSt   Republic   in 

America,    92;    Genesis    of    the 

United  States,  3,  4,  13,  30,  225- 

229. 

Browne,  William,  15. 
Brownists,  65,  84,  93. 
'Brutus',  125,  131. 
Bryce,    Viscount,    The   American 

Commonwealth,  28-30,  208. 
Buchanan,  George,  De  Jure  Regni, 

109. 

Buckingham,  first  Duke  of,  90. 
Bunyan,  197. 
Burbage,  Richard,  21. 
Burke,  Edmund,  196,  198. 

'CADE,  Jack',  156. 

'Caliban',  59-63. 

Calvin,  84. 

Campbell,  Chief  Justice,  141. 

'Carlisle,  the  Bishop  of,  135. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  127. 

Castiglione,  183. 

Cavendish,    Sir   William,    second 

Earl  of  Devonshire,  90,  93,  114, 

161. 

Caxton,  234. 
Chapman,  George,  15,  27,  77,  78; 

translation   of   the    Iliad,    165, 

234-236. 


Charles  I,  24. 

Chatham,  Earl  of,  196. 

Chaucer,  translation  of  Boethius, 

152,  166,  171,  174,  176,  178,  179, 

234-237,  240;   Troilus  and  Cri- 

seyde,  152,  166,  176,  178,  179, 

236,  237. 

Chettle,  Henry,  122,  123. 
Cicero,  145,  241,  246,  249. 
Clark,  A.,  25. 
'Claudius',  in  Hamlet,  135. 
Clement  VIII,  98. 
Clifford  Chambers,  30,  31,  32,  37. 
Clive,  Lord,  196. 
Coke,   Sir  Edward,  6,    195,  201, 

214. 

Cotton,  John,  192. 
Combe,  John,  31,  32. 
Common  Law,  the,  194-195,  197, 

201-202. 
Concord,  216. 

Condell,  Henry,  14-16,  122. 
Connock,  Richard,  28. 
Constitution,  the  American,  108, 

207-211,  213. 

Contrat  Social,  see  Rousseau. 
Convivium  Philosophicum,  25-28. 
Coriolanus,  I,  40,  41,  133,  187. 
Cornwallis,  Lord,  200. 
Court,  or  Spanish,  Party,  3,  5,  6, 

34,  90,  92,  93- 
Cranfield,  Lionel,  93. 
Cranmer,  George,  86,  87,  89,  106. 
Crashaw,  W.,  New  Yeeres  Gift  to 

Firginea,  226. 
Cromwell,  Oliver,  16,  90,  193,  196, 

200. 

Cromwell,  Thomas,  157. 
Cunningham,  Peter,  43,  44. 


Index 


263 


DALE,  Sir  Thomas,  5,  82,  91,  191, 

200,  228. 

Daniel,  Samuel,  76. 
Davenant,  Sir  Wm.,  33. 
Da  vies,  John,  of  Hereford,  17,  32, 

122,  123. 

Davies,  Sir  John,  246. 
Davison,  Secretary,  86. 
Declaration  of  Independence,  99, 

108,  in,  113,  202,  203,  213. 
Declaration  of  Rights   the  Amer- 
ican, 213,  214. 
Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man, 

214. 
De  la  Warr,  Lord,  16,  17,  28,  37, 

42,  50,  52,  161,  191,  226. 
De  Selincourt,  E.,  133,  157. 
Despatch  from  the  Lord  De  la  Warr, 

51,  52,  227,  229,  230. 
Desportes,  121. 
Devereux,  Penelope,  121. 
Devereux,  Robert,  see  Essex. 
Devonshire,  Duke  of,  199. 
D'Ewes'  Journal  of  the  House  of 

Commons,  84. 
Digges,  Sir  Dudley,  22,  24,  37,  81, 

90,  114,  161,  202. 
Digges,  Leonard,  23,  24,  123. 
'Discourse  of  Reason,'  188,  189, 

248-255. 
Discovery  of  the  Barmudas,  A,  see 

Jourdan. 

Donne,  John,  14,  21,  26,  28,  29,  38. 
Doyle,  J.  A.,  3,  13. 
Drake,  Sir  Francis,  I,  34. 
Drayton,  Michael,  21,  25,  29,  30, 

3i,  32,  77,  78,  121. 
Drummond,  Wm.,  77. 
Dunning,  W.  A.,  107,  205,  212. 


EASTWARD  HOE,  77. 

Ecclesiastical  Polity,  Of  the  Laws  of: 
95-114  (political  principles); 
162-190  (similarities  in  Shake- 
speare); 242-259  (ethics  and 
psychology  of  Hooker  and 
Shakespeare).  See,  also,  under 
Richard  Hooker. 

Eden,  Historic  of  Travayle,  62. 

Edward  the  Confessor,  194. 

Edward  III,  108. 

Eggleston,  E.,  6,  229. 

Eliot,  Sir  John,  90. 

Elizabeth  (Lady)  Howard  of  Wai- 
den,  231. 

Elizabeth,  Princess,  27,  78. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  I,  2,  9,  10,  n, 
17,  27,  29,  35,  43,  86,  115,  154, 

155,  IS6,  159,  233. 

Elyot,  Sir  Thomas,  The  Governour, 
168,  183,  239. 

Endicott,  Governor,  192. 

English  Founders  of  Colonial  Lib- 
erty, 1-39,  81-94,  107-114,  191- 
193,  196-197,  200-205,  207-212, 
214-215,  224. 

England  and  America:  their  com- 
mon heritage,  191-202. 

Erasmus,  248. 

Essex,  Robert  Devereux,  second 
Earl  of,  9,  10,  12,  14,  16,  17,  18, 
19,  20,  24,  28,  29,  33,  115,  132, 

156,  234. 
Ethelbert,  King,  194. 

Ethics  and  Psychology  of  Shake- 
speare and  Hooker,  242- 

259- 

Every  Man  in  his  Humour, 
62. 


264 


Index 


Excellent  Lady,  the,  of  Strachey's 

True  Rfportory,  231-232. 
'Exeter,  Bishop  of  (H.  P.),  145. 

'FALSTAFF',  125,  126. 
'Fauconbridge',     137,     138,     148, 

149,  150,  151. 
Federalist,  The,  208. 
'Ferdinand',  62. 
Ferrar,    Nicholas,    20;    Nicholas, 

Jr.,  90;  William,  20;  the  Ferrars, 

24,  81,  85,  90,  91,  92,  93,  161. 
Field,  Henry  and  Richard,  38. 
First  Akibiades,  The,  246. 
Fiske,  John,  199. 
Fitz  James,  John,  227. 
Fletcher,  John,  17,  22,  79,  80. 
Florio,  243,  248,  250,  255,  258. 
Force,  Peter,  46. 
Fortescue,  De  laudibus  legum,  4.6, 

108,  195. 

Fox,  Charles  James,  198,  200. 
France  and  America,  the  source  of 

their  democratic  ideals,  202-215. 
Francis,  Sir  Philip,  196. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  in,  200. 
Frederick  II,  221. 
Freeman,  E.  A.,  122,  123,  195. 
French  Revolution,  202-207,  211- 

215. 

Frobisher,  Martin,  I. 
Furness  Fariorum,  53,  229,  230. 

GARGANTUA    AND    PANTAGRUEL, 

238. 
Gates,  Sir  Thomas,  18,  19,  30,  37, 

42-Si»  59,  61,  66,  71,  75,  81,  91, 

161,  225-227. 
"Gaunt,  John  of,"  135,  138. 


Gayley,  C.  M.,  25. 

George  III,  199. 

Ghost  of  Richard  III,  The,  by 
Brooke,  21. 

Gilbert,  Sir  Humphrey,  I. 

Glanvil,  Ranulf  de,  195. 

Globe  Theatre,  10,  22,  26. 

Goethe,  221. 

Gondomar,  Count,  90,  92. 

'Gonzalo',  62,  68,  69,  255. 

Gonzalus,  Ferdinandus  Oviedus, 
62. 

Gooch,  G.  P.,  109,  207. 

Goodere,  Anne,  21,  30;  see  Rains- 
ford. 

Goodere,  Sir  Henry,  29,  30. 

Gosnold,  Captain,  3. 

Governour,  The,  see  Elyot. 

Graham,  W.,  207. 

Grasse,  de,  Admiral,  215. 

Great  Rebellion,  the,  90,  200,  215. 

Greene,  Herbert  E.,  71. 

Greville,  Sir  Fulke,  Lord  Brooke, 
32-36,  76,  147,  160. 

Grotius,  112. 

'Guildenstern',  255. 

HAMLET,  116,  125,  130,  132,  187, 

189,  243,  246,  248,  250,  251. 
Hakluyt,  Richard,  50,  71,  72,  75, 

232;  Hakluyt's  Navigations,  62; 

Hakluyt  Society,  48,  52,   227, 

229. 

Hall,  Dr.  John,  31. 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  III. 
Hampden,  John,  90,  192,  196. 
Hancock,  John,  200. 
Hanford,  J.  H.,  241. 
Harrington,  James,  in,  197,  214. 


Index 


265 


Hart,  A.  B.,  204. 

Hazlitt,  Wm.,  132. 

'Hector',  243,  245,  251. 

Heminges,  John,  14,  15,  16,  21, 
122. 

Henderson,  T.  F.,  98. 

Henry  II,  195. 

Henry  III,  195. 

Henry  IV,  24. 

Henry  F,g,  125,  137, 143,  145, 148, 
ISO,  IS3,  IS4,  IS7,  158,  186,  187, 
242. 

Henry  VI,  Pt.  2,  147. 

Henry  VII,  168. 

Henry  VII,  22,  79. 

Henry,  Patrick,  in,  200. 

Herbert,  George,  14. 

Herbert,  William,  see  Pembroke; 
Philip,  see  Montgomery. 

Herkimer,  223. 

Hobart,  Sir  Henry,  232. 

Holland,  Hugh,  17,  18,  26,  28,  77. 

Hooker,  Richard,  83-86,  89,  93, 
95-114,  115,  117,  132,  144,  147, 
152,  160;  162-190,  Shakespeare 
and  Hooker;  192,  197,  200,  201, 
204,  206,  212,  214,  218,  222,  234; 
240-241,  Indebtedness  to  Boe- 
thius  and  Chaucer;  242-259,  The 
Ethics  and  Psychology  of  Hook- 
er and  Shakespeare. 

Hopkins,  Stephen,  63,  65. 

Hoskins,  John,  25,  28,  38,  90,  161. 

Howard,  Charles,  Earl  of  Notting- 
ham, 232;  Thomas  and  Eliza- 
beth, Baron  and  Baroness  How- 
ard of  Walden,  231;  Thomas, 
Earl  of  Suffolk,  231. 

Hume,  George,  Earl  of  Dunbar, 


ILIAD,  165,  168,  234-236. 
Independence,  War  of,  see  Revolu- 
tion, American. 
Inns  of  Court,  20,  25,  78,  141. 

JAMES  I,  2,  9,  n,  17,  19,  20,  27,  35, 

4i,  43,  75,  79,  80,  91,  92,  93,  98, 

115,  149,  156,  157,  200,  233,  234. 
Jamestown,  42,  49,  51,  225,  226, 

227,  230. 

"  J.  D.",  see  Translations. 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  in,  113,  200, 

213. 

Jewell,  Bishop,  96. 
Jodelle,  121. 

John,  the  King,  195,  200. 
Jonson,  Ben,  15,  16,  17,  21,  25,  27, 

29,  31,  32,  77,  122,  123. 
Jourdan,  Silvester,  A  Discovery  of 

the  Barmudas,  45,  48,  49-55,  59, 

226,  227,  230. 
Julius  Casar,  24,  132,  187. 

KING  JOHN,  144,  148,  149. 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  53,  74. 
Kirkham,  21. 
Knox,  John,  109. 

LAFAYETTE,  the  Marquis  de,  214, 
215. 

Langley,  'the  Gardener'  of,  138, 
142. 

Law,  Ernest,  44. 

Law  of  human  nature,  or  reason: 
Hooker's  principles,  99,  100, 
107,  109,  no,  112,  113;  Shake- 
speare's, 141,  142;  Shakespeare 
and  Hooker  compared,  162-190, 
245-2SS- 


266 


Index 


Law  positive,  Hooker's,  100-114; 
Shakespeare's,  142;  compared 
with  Hooker's,  245-255. 

Law  of  Nations,  152-154,  172-174, 
176,  222. 

Lear,  129,  130,  132,  187. 

Lee,  Richard  Henry,  200. 

Lee,  Sir  Sidney,  30,  32,  33,  117, 

139- 

Leicester,  Earl  of,  I,  157. 

Letter  to  an  Excellent  Lady  (A  True 
Repertory),  44,  49-53,  70-76, 
231,  232,  and  see  Strachey. 

Leroy,  Loys,  241,  242. 

Leyden,  87,  89. 

Liberal,  Independent,  or  Patriot 
Party,  under  Elizabeth  and 
James  I,  2,  39,  40-41,  73,  75, 
8i-94,  95,  98,  99,  107-108,  ill, 
113-114,  115,  128-136,  156-157, 
159-161,  189-191,  233. 

Lincoln's  Inn,  20,  26. 

Lisle,  Lord,  Robert  Sidney,  16,  37. 

Littleton,  195. 

Locke,  John,  Treatise  of  Civil  Gov~ 
ernment,  108,  Hi,  113, 197,  204- 
215. 

Lodge,  H.  C.,  5,  6. 

Lopez,  Roderigo,  8. 

Luce,  Morton,  71,  149. 

'Lucrece',  130. 

Lucy,  Sir  Thomas,  94. 

Luther,  221. 

Lyly,  John,  EuphufS,  145. 

MACBETH,  186. 
Macduff,  136. 

Macchiavelli,  126,  155,  157-159, 
220. 


Mackail,  J.  W.,  116,  129,  142. 
Magna  Charta,  108,  194,  195,  208, 

210. 

Major,  John,  109. 
Major,  R.  H.,  51,  229. 
'Malcolm',  136. 
Malone,  Edmund,  44,  229,  230. 
Marston,  John,  77,  248. 
Martin,  Richard,  27,  28,  37,  90, 

161. 

Massachusetts  Hist.  Soc.  Publica- 
tions, 13. 

Mayflower,  the,  65. 
M'Clain,  E.,  202. 
McLaughlin,  A.  C,  204,  207,  211. 
Measure  for   Measure,    144,    151, 

187,  246. 
Merchant  of  Fenict,  The,  8,  134, 

186. 

Mermaid  Club,  26. 
Merrick,  Sir  Gelly,  10. 
Middle  Temple,  27,  28. 
Milton,  193,  197,  214. 
'Miranda',  55,  56. 
Mitre  Club,  25-29. 
Montaigne,  48,  189,  242,  243,  247, 

248,  250,  254,  255. 
Montesquieu,  107,  208. 
Montgomery,  Philip  Herbert,  Earl 

of,  13,  16,  37. 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  48,  108. 
Motteux,  248. 

Much  Ado  about  Nothing,  24. 
Miihlenberg,  223. 
Musophilus,  76. 
Mustapha,  36. 

NEILL,  E.  D.,  Virginia  Company 
of  London,  13,  29,  88. 


Index 


267 


Newport,  Captain,  45,  64,  226. 
New  England,  3,  13,  20,  89,  196, 

222. 
New  Place,  Stratford,  30,  31,  32, 

33- 
New  Shakespeare  Soc.  Transactions, 

238. 
Neville,  Sir  Henry,  16,  17,  18,  26, 

36,  81,  90,  114,  161. 
Northumberland,  Duke  of,  199. 
North,  Lord,  198. 
Nosce  Teipsum,  247. 

OSGOOD,  H.  L.,  4. 
Othello,  24,  248,  251. 
Otis,  James,  in,  200. 

PANURGE,  248. 

Patriots  of  the  Virginia  Company, 
see  Liberal  Party. 

Pembroke,  William  Herbert,  Earl 
of,  8,  12-16,  18,  25,  37,  77,  81, 
161. 

Penshurst,  Baron,  see  Lisle. 

Percy,  Sir  Charles,  9. 

Percy,  George,  225,  226. 

Perez,  Antonio,  8. 

Petition  of  Right,  90,  III,  208. 

Phillips,  Sir  Robert,  27,  90,  114. 

Pilgrims,  the,  86,  88. 

Pitt,  William,  Earl  of  Chatham, 
198,  200. 

Pitt,  William,  the  younger,  200. 

Plato,  132,  144,  145,  167,  180,  181, 
183,  189,  236,  241-242,  Transla- 
tions and  Expositions;  251,  256. 

Players,  Leicester's,  i;  the  Cham- 
berlain's, 9,  10;  the  King's,  14- 
16,  21,  22,  44. 


Plymouth     Colony,    65,     87-89, 

192. 

Pokahontas,  77. 
Pollard,  A.  W.,  73,  74. 
Pollock,  Sir  Frederick,  109,  205. 
Ponet,  Bishop,  108. 
Pontoux,  Claude  de,  121. 
Portland,  Duke  of,  199. 
Proceedings  of  the  English  Colonie 

in  Virginia,  74,  229. 
'Prospero',  55,  58-63. 
Prussia,  219. 
Publication  of  the  Counsell  of  Fir- 

ginea,  A,  46,  47,  226. 
Purchas  his  Pilgrimes,  50,  70-72, 

76,  225,  229. 

Puritans,  9,  94,  178,  186,  249. 
Pym,  John,  16,  90,  182. 

RABELAIS,  152,  167,  238,  248. 
Radclyffe,  John,  225. 
Rainsford,  Sir  Henry,  and  Lady 
R.  (Anne  Goodere),  21,  30-32, 

37,  "i. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  i,  28. 
Raleigh,  Professor  Sir  Walter,  154, 

156. 

Rape  of  Lucrece,  The,  40,  130. 
Records  of  the  Virginia  Company, 

13. 
Renaissance,  121,  139,  140,   146, 

159. 
Revolution  of  1688,  the,  in,  112, 

193,  203-205,  207,  212,  215. 
Rich,  Robert,  see  Warwick. 
Richard  II,  9,  84,  95,  108,  134,  142, 

143,  148,  186,  187. 
Richard  III,  21,  142,  144. 
Rochambeau,  214,  215. 


268 


Index 


Robertson,  J.  M.,  247,  248,  250, 

255- 

Robinson,  Rev.  John,  87,  88. 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  242. 
'Rosencrantz',  255. 
Ronsard,  121. 
Rousseau,  203-208,  212,  213. 

SACKVILLE,  Sir  Edward,  fourth 
Earl  of  Dorset,  7,  24,  25,  38,  81, 

85,91,93,  H4,  161. 

Saffron  Walden,  231. 

Salisbury,  Earl  of,  225,  227,  228. 

Sandys,  Edwin,  Abp.  of  York,  83, 
96. 

Sandys,  Sir  Edwin,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  15, 
19,  25,  27,  35,  36,  40,  41,  52,  69, 
70,  75,  81-94,  96,  106,  107,  108, 
113,  115,  132,  160,  161,  192,  199, 

2OO,  2OI,  214,  232,  233. 

Sandys,  George,  93. 

Sandys,  Robert,  94. 

Sandys,  Sir  Samuel,  86,  93,  94. 

Scourge  of  Folly,  32. 

Scrooby,  86,  87. 

'Sebastian',  60,  68,  69. 

Selden,  John,  20,  22,  24,  25,  27,  38, 
77,  81,  85,  90,  91,  93,  113,  132, 
161,  201,  214. 

Seneca,  248. 

Separatists,  84,  86,  93. 

Serbia,  216,  219. 

Shakespeare,  and  the  Liberals  of 
the  Virginia  Company,  8-39;  his 
Tempest  and  an  unpublished 
letter  from  Virginia,  40-80;  his 
views  of  the  individual  in  rela- 
tion to  the  state,  115-161;  re- 
semblances between  his  thought 


and  that  of  Hooker,  162-190, 
242-259;  his  indebtedness  to 
Homer,  Boethius,  and  Chaucer, 
234-238;  his  plays,  see  under 
titles;  his  Sonnets  quoted,  n,  12, 
118,  119,  120. 

'Shallow',  9,  94. 

'Shylock',  8. 

Sidney,  Algernon,  in,  197,  214. 

Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  12,  16,  33,  34, 
121. 

Sidney,  Sir  Robert,  see  Lisle. 

'Silence ',9. 

Smith,  Captain  John,  46,  74,  225, 
228,  229. 

Smith,  Sir  Thomas,  The  English 
Commonwealth,  109,  144. 

Smith,  Sir  Thomas,  of  the  Va.  Co., 

93- 
Social  Compact,  the,  100-105,  IO7~ 

113,  203-207,  210-215. 
Socrates,  144,  248. 
Somers  (Summers),  Sir  George,  42, 

45,  Si,  57,  225,  226. 
Southampton,  Henry  Wriothesley, 

Earl  of,  2,  6,  8,  9-12,  13,  14,  16, 

17,  18,  24,  27,  35,  37,  70,  77,  81, 

85,  89,  90,  9i,  92,  93,  i°6,  "5, 

132,  136, 156,  160,  161,  192,  199, 

214,  233,  234. 
Spain,    i,   34,   57.     For   Spanish 

party,  see  Court. 
Speght's  Chaucer,  237. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  76. 
Staple  of  Netves,  77. 
State  Papers,  Domestic,  8,  13,  25, 

225;  Colonial,  13,  227. 
Stationers'  Hall  and  Registers,  38, 

45,  46,  72,  73,  74,  97. 


Index 


269 


'Stephano',  60,  61,  62,  63-65. 

Stith's  History  of  Virginia,  13. 

Strachey,  William,  and  his  Letter 
to  an  Excellent  Lady  (A  True 
Repertory),  44,  49-53,  70-76, 

226,  229-332;  Shakespeare's  in- 
debtedness to  the  Letter  in  the 
composition  of  The  Tempest,  53- 
69.    For  Strachey's  hand  in  the 
True  Declaration  and  the  De  la 
Warr  Despatch,  see  49,  51-53, 67, 

227,  229-230;  for  his  Historie  of 
Travaile  into  Virginia,  228,  229, 
232. 

Stratford,  i,  14,  23,  30,  31,  32,  33, 

38,  76. 

Stuart,  12,  129,  133,  136,  214. 
Summer  Islands,  72,  232. 
Symonds,  W.,  74,  229. 

TATLOCK,  J.  S.  P.,  234. 

Tempest,  The,  I,  19;  materials  de- 
rived from  Strachey,  49-76;  187, 
229. 

'Thersites',  236. 

Thomas,  Historye  of  Italye,  62. 

Thynne's  Chaucer,  237. 

Tonson,  56. 

Translations  and  expositions  of 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  241-242. 

Treatise  of  Civil  Government,  see 
Locke. 

Treitschke,  159. 

'Trinculo',  60,  61,  63. 

Troilus  and  Cressida,  1, 40, 41,  146, 
147,  150-153,  163-187,  234,  236, 
241,  243,  245,  248,  251,  254. 

Troilus  and  Criseyde,  see  Chaucer. 

True  and  Sincere  Declaration  of  the 


purpose  and  ends  of  the  plantation 
begun  in  Virginia,  A,  45,  46,  67, 
80,  226. 

True  Declaration  of  the  Estate  of 
the  Colony  of  Virginia,  A,  46,  48, 
49, 52-54, 56, 67, 75, 227, 229-230. 

True  Repertory,  A,  see  Strachey. 

Tudor,  129,  147. 

Twelfth  Night,  24. 

'ULYSSES',  146,  147,  150-153,  156, 

163-187,  232-248,  passim. 
Underbill,  Arthur,  141. 
United  Netherlands,  210. 
Urquhart,  239. 

Venus  and  Adonis,  10,  38. 

Verney,  Sir  Richard,  32. 

Verplanck,  169,  171,  173,  178. 

'Vincentio',  125,  246. 

Virginia,  the  first  Assembly  of,  6, 
7,  82,  92;  the  Charters,  4,  5,  6, 
20,  35,  42,  81,  85,  91,  108,  in, 
198,  232. 

Virginia  Company,  of  London,  2-7, 

8-39,  43,  44,  45,  5°,  74,  75,  85, 
87,  89-93,  99,  in;  of  Plymouth, 
19. 

Virginia  Council,  3,  8-34,  36-38, 
42,  46,  51,  69,  70,  74,  80,  81,  91, 
93,  98,  115,  160,  161,  231,  232, 
233. 

Virginia  Courts,  6,  20,  90,  92. 

Virginia  Expedition  of  1609,  pam- 
phlets and  data  relative  to,  225- 
229. 

'W.  S.',  229. 
Walton,  Isaac,  96,  98. 
Want,  John,  231. 


270  Index 

Warwick,  Robert  Rich,  Eari  of,  35,  Weymouth,  Captain,  3. 

92,  93.  Whitaker,  Alexander,  192,  228. 

Washington,  Alice,  and  Elizabeth,  Whitehall,  43,  44,  129. 

94.  Winthrop,   Governor  John,    192, 
Washington,  George,  94,  in,  196,          200,  201. 

200,  223.  Wolfe,  General,  196. 

Weever,  122.  Wood,  Anthony,  13. 

West,  John,  18,  28;  Thomas,  see  Wyatt,  Sir  Francis,  191,  200. 

De  la  Warr.  Wycliff,  John,  108. 


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third.  It  is  the  more  difficult  to  indicate  precisely  what  the 
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raphers, because  the  amplifications  are  in  the  nature  of  refitting 
the  bones  of  a  skeleton  (a  skeleton  already  of  Titanic  stature) 
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